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Illinois sanctuary policies have allowed more than 1,700 criminal illegal aliens to slip back onto the streets since President Trump took office on January 20, and the Department of Homeland Security is now calling out state officials for putting politics ahead of public safety. Among those released are individuals charged with or convicted of homicide, sexual assault, and kidnapping—crimes that should have kept them locked up and handed over to federal immigration authorities.

ICE Director Todd Lyons sent a letter to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul urging him to honor ICE detainers for over 4,000 criminal illegal aliens currently sitting in state custody. The letter marks the second attempt by federal officials to get cooperation from Illinois—the first, sent in September, was completely ignored. 

The numbers are staggering. According to the Department of Homeland Security, “Illinois' failure to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 1,768 criminal illegal aliens since January 20. The crimes of these aliens include five homicides, 141 assaults, 23 burglaries, four robberies, 24 dangerous drugs offenses, 15 weapons offenses, and 10 sexual predatory offenses.”

And that's just the ones who've already been let go. The 4,015 criminal illegal aliens still in Illinois custody with active ICE detainers have even grimmer records: 51 homicides, 1,134 assaults, 107 burglaries, 36 robberies, 275 dangerous drug offenses, 120 weapons offenses, and 813 sexual predatory offenses.

BREAKING - It has been revealed that since the beginning of 2025, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has released over 1,700 known criminal aliens who were charged with murder and rape in other countries in an attempt to hide them from ICE detainers. pic.twitter.com/9rsmuOHmYS

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) December 8, 2025

ICE reached out to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in September, urging him to work with the agency and honor detainers on criminal illegal aliens, but Raoul’s office ignored the letter

"Gov. Pritzker and his fellow Illinois sanctuary politicians are releasing murderers, pedophiles, and kidnappers back into our neighborhoods and putting American lives at risk," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are calling on Governor Pritzker and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens in Illinois’ custody. It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans.”

The Department of Homeland Security highlighted several cases of criminal illegal aliens who were released from custody and put back on the streets because of Prtizker’s sanctuary policies. 

Under Governor Pritzker, Illinois’ sanctuary policies have led to the release of some of the most dangerous illegal immigrants, even when ICE had detainers and the offenders clearly threatened public safety: Victor Manuel Mendoza-Garcia, a Mexican national convicted of three counts of aggravated kidnapping for ransom and sentenced to 18 years. Cook County ignored ICE’s detainer, which meant that federal agents had to arrest him after his release. 

Then there’s Juan Morales Martinez of Guatemala, who killed two people in a car crash and was found with ammunition and an extended magazine. Clark County also refused to work with ICE, so federal agents had to wait outside the jail to catch him the moment he walked free. He has since been removed from the country.

Amilcar Waldo Gonzalez-Jimenez, another Mexican national, had convictions for DUI, domestic battery, and multiple counts of criminal sexual assault. ICE’s detainer was ignored, and agents had to track him down on their own. The same story played out with Juan Alberto Caro Marin, convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a family member. Cook County let him walk despite ICE’s request to hold him.

Jose Manuel Fuentes-Vargas, also from Mexico, had a criminal history including domestic violence and the sexual assault of a child under 13. His detainer wasn’t honored either. Repeat border crosser Leonardo Ignot-Osto had been convicted of theft, child abduction, and had entered the U.S. illegally at least four times. Cook County still released him. ICE eventually found him and removed him.

The list continues with offenders like Jaime Mandujano-Nunez, convicted of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 17 years. The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) released him without notifying ICE. Federal agents later located and removed him. Alfonso Batalla Garcia had one of the most alarming records: attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault with bodily harm, and aggravated kidnapping. IDOC freed him anyway, ignoring ICE’s detainer, and ICE had to step in to clean up the mess.

And then there’s Guillermo Garcia-Porcayo, convicted of attempted murder with intent to kill. IDOC released him despite an active detainer. ICE finally apprehended him weeks later and removed him from the country.

These cases represent only a handful of the worst offenders. 

Governor Pritzker is widely viewed as a likely contender for the Democrats’ 2028 nomination, and his sanctuary policies fit neatly with what the party activists want. They want a standard-bearer who treats resistance to President Trump as a defining principle, and Pritzker has been trying to position himself as that champion, even at the expense of the safety of his constituents.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated.

Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border.

The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter the U.S. at will. Deterrence and legality were lost.

In its place, the message went out that if it was permissible to cross the border unlawfully, then, by extension, it would be seen as equally fine to reside illegally as well—and perhaps further to ignore laws, on the theory that the host had sanctioned all such exemptions.

During the lockdown hysteria, some 8,000-8,500 U.S. soldiers were expelled from the military for refusing the experimental mRNA vaccine. State employees nationwide were being fired for refusing the government vaccines. Nevertheless, illegal aliens would have no such mandates or worries. They simply walked in without worries over vaccinations and current COVID status and surmised correctly that illegal aliens were part of a Biden-administration-protected and privileged category.

Indeed, between 2021 and 2025, in one of the most bizarre episodes in U.S. immigration history, the border simply disappeared. There were to be no background checks, no health audits, and no identification of the greatest influx in any four-year period in U.S. history.

No one knew why. All had their explanations.

Was the Biden handlers’ plan for more poor to grow the welfare state and expand liberal government?

Was it misplaced idealism to welcome in millions of the world’s poorest, who would soon make it even more difficult for the nation’s citizen poor to find affordable housing and health care?

Was the agenda to create future dependencies and constituencies for an otherwise ossified Democratic Party?

Or was it an effort to ensure, in DEI terms, that the oppressed and victimized would outgrow the inert white oppressors and victimizers?

Oddest of all has been the attitude of the left toward the past destruction of the border. They went mum about the rampant illegality as the border disappeared and as millions filtered throughout the nation. Americans had no idea who the newcomers were, or even where or why they were here.

Given that it is much easier to destroy the border and allow millions to enter than to restore it and find the millions who entered illegally, the Democrats’ response has been Orwellian. After assuming the law did not apply to illegal alien entrants, they now insist its full force must apply to each of 10 million aliens before they can be sent home.

There were no protests when an errant Biden ICE became dysfunctional due to massive illegality. But there is now outrage when it attempts to restore legality and follow the law.

The result, however, of such a massive nullification of immigration laws has been that the nation’s outrage over illegal immigration has now extended to legal immigration as well. At the current level of frustration, all legal immigration will likely soon be put on hold.

Why?

One, we are currently in a great experiment: never has the U.S. foreign-born resident population approached 50-55 million or 16 percent of the population.

Two, never has the once-time-tried melting-pot creed of assimilation, integration, and acculturation been under greater assault and ridicule—just when it is most needed.

The canon of DEI—the nation is divided between a mostly white oppressor class and the non-white oppressed—has served to amplify the effects of giving up on civic education and melting-pot assimilation.

Somehow, the left advanced the absurd notion that the salad bowl of immigrants, chiefly and permanently identified by tribal ethnicities, races, religions, and nationalities, and only secondly as new Americans, would radically change America for the better. And so ended the ancient notion of assimilation, now to be known as “cultural appropriation.”

Three, if millions of legal immigrants are not asked to assume fully American identities, and further, if they feel that there are exemptions and largesse to be had by emphasizing their tribal and victimized status, then will they also feel they are not subject to any American customs and laws?

Instead, immigrants under these new protocols will seek to carve out their own tribal communities, based both on ethnic chauvinism and a sense of exemption from accountability. And if they insist on identifying as collectives rather than unique individuals, they will become increasingly unpopular not just as ingrates, but as hypocrites whose greater affinity with the nation they abandoned does not extend to returning to it.

Indeed, they will appear to have arrived in America only to craft a cocoon of security, freedom, and prosperity lacking in their homeland, but otherwise not to become fully American or see their former homeland as incidental, not essential, to their new identities.

The logical result of such tribal immigration is now upon us. Somali immigrants, both legal and illegal, have pulled off a likely multi-billion-dollar welfare fraud in Minnesota—perhaps the greatest single heist of welfare funds in the nation’s history. They were empowered by the usual DEI boilerplate rhetoric from their Minnesota champions, Rep. Ilhan Omar (who claimed the U.S. was now “one of the worst countries in the world”), Governor Tim Walz, and Attorney General Keith Ellison.

The more criminality, theft, and fraud were uncovered, the more the Somali leadership screamed “racism,” with the Democrat apparat blaming everyone but the perpetrators themselves.

Meanwhile, California has issued at least 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses to illegal alien truck drivers, the majority of them non-residents with little if any prior trucking expertise or English facility. The result is a sort of road-warrior new atmosphere on the nation’s freeways, as a new generation of truckers ignores the norms of the past and rightly concludes that if they were given exemption to enter the U.S. illegally and further to drive without proper audits, then naturally no authorities would mind if they also violated American traffic laws.

There are roughly one million foreign students in the U.S., the majority from China, India, and the Middle East. After October 7, protests, often violent and in violation of campus rules, spread nationwide.

There was never much pushback from either campus official or law enforcement. Within a few months, our liberal bastions of higher education had become saturated with anti-Semitic rhetoric, protests, and occasional violence against Jews.

Middle-East guest students often openly cheered on Hamas, called for the destruction of Israel, and, despite being non-citizens, often declared campus areas as no-go zones for American Jews. They did so because they could and had fully absorbed the DEI mantras of exemption.

So often they screamed “Islamophobia” when called out on their anti-Semitism, damning their critics with slurs of “nativism,” “racism,” and “xenophobia.” Thousands of foreign students felt contempt for their hosts and rhetorically attacked the U.S. as much as they fought in reality to remain in America.

As for the millions who crossed the southern border, almost daily, a national news story relates that a DUI driver has killed an American family, or a U.S. citizen has been murdered or raped, by an “undocumented immigrant,” usually with a criminal record, several deportations, and revolving-door arrests.

In Los Angeles, we were treated to street scenes of immigrants, apparently both legal and illegal, waving the Mexican flag while occasionally burning the American flag, sending the message that they would resist returning to the country whose flag they chauvinistically waved but demanded permanent residence in the nation whose flag they trashed and burned.

The net result was that our recent generations of immigrants have done the impossible: turned the most generous nation in the world from the most welcoming to increasingly resistant to mass immigration of any sort.

Again, why the change? They have read the news of one too many horrendous semi-truck accidents, one too many horrific murders, one too many anti-Semitic screams, and one too many massive abuses of a generous welfare state.

In sum, Americans now believe that the current generation of immigrants interprets their magnanimity and generosity as weakness and stupidity to be manipulated and scorned, and rarely as generosity to be appreciated and reciprocated in kind.

Authored by Steve Cortes via Cortes Investigates,

There’s real angst among older Americans about Gen Z’s openness to socialism. For those of us shaped by the Cold War, this flirtation with Marxism-lite feels alarming.

But we need to pause and rethink what we’re actually seeing.

Gen Z isn’t embracing socialism because they dream of five-year plans. They’re listening because the “capitalism” they were sold was already broken—rigged for insiders, punishing for everyone else.

They’ve been:

• Systematically lied to, about major issues

• Shut out of real opportunity

• Raised in an economy designed to reward incumbents, not strivers

Also, they didn’t come pre-programmed. They don’t warm to inherited allegiances. The ideological labels—capitalism, socialism, Zionism, democracy, equity—don’t trigger the same instincts in them. In many cases, they don’t trigger anything at all.

Because maybe they don’t even know (or care) that they’re supposed to be pro-this or anti-that. They weren’t around for the Cold War. They didn’t watch the Berlin Wall fall. They weren’t raised on 9/11 flags or 20th-century partisan scripts.

What they were around for was collapse.

They saw their parents lose homes in 2008. They saw entire towns swallowed by fentanyl. They got locked in their bedrooms by “experts” who wrecked their lives and walked away clean. They were force-fed contradictions: “trust the science,” “speech is violence,” “men are women,” “America is evil,” “conform or else.”

They weren’t around for the great debates of the last century. They were around for the fallout. So no—don’t expect them to fall in line.

I polled over 2,000 young adults, aged 18–25. The results were eye-opening. Yes, 43% said they view socialism positively, vs. 33% negatively. The other 24% weren’t sure. Even among young Trump voters, it was a 40–40 split.

But they’re not drawn to socialism because they want state control. They’re drawn to something else—something different—because what’s here now DOES NOT WORK FOR THEM! What they’ve seen isn’t free enterprise. It’s a crony system where power protects power.

Still, don’t confuse them for leftists. They are, in many ways, anti-woke populists in the making:

• 67–21% say trans violence is a systemic issue

• 69–24% fiercely back free speech—even if it’s “offensive” or “untrue”

• They reject males in female sports

• 66–21% say we intervene too much overseas

• 70–20% are deeply concerned about the national debt

They want sovereignty. Clarity. Reality. But what they get is a system that works for the already successful—and nobody else.

88% say they want to buy a home in their 20s or 30s. Most know they won’t. First-time homebuyer age just hit 40, a historic high.

They’re facing a brutal job market. The unemployment rate for 20–24-year-old college grads is now 9.5%, the highest in over a decade, except for the lockdowns. Automation is crushing entry-level candidates. Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs just warned that “Gen Z professionals, especially those in junior tech roles, are at the frontlines of job displacement as companies rapidly automate entry-level tasks.”

So yeah, they’re open to something new. They’re not ideologues—they’re pragmatists who’ve seen the receipts.

And they’ve seen that the elite don’t believe in capitalism either—at least not when it applies to them. When things go bad, it’s bailout time. In 2008, Wall Street big shots all got rescued. Masses of regular Americans lost homes. Nothing changed.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp explained it bluntly: “these business leaders make completely stupid decisions, and they get bailed out, a year later they’re getting huge bonuses. And what do the American people get? Nothing.” As a consequence, “no one believes the institutions are credible,” and certainly not skeptical young adults.

So no—Gen Z doesn’t trust institutions. At all. And why should they?

They were told:

• “There are 56 genders”

• “America was founded for slavery”

• “White men are inherently guilty”

• “The science is settled—until it’s not”

• “Shut up, mask up, and be grateful”

And through it all, they were punished for asking questions.

So when they don’t pledge allegiance on cue, don’t act surprised.

They don’t arrive with preloaded scripts. No automatic “stand with” or “stand against.” No guilt-based loyalty tests. They weren’t raised on legacy narratives.

They look at what’s happening—who’s suffering, who’s in power, who’s lying—and they judge in real time.

They’re not picking sides because someone told them to. They’re asking questions older generations were told never to ask. They don’t trust official narratives—because none of the storytellers have earned their trust.

They are skeptical of every flag, every faction, every moral claim. And based on what they’ve lived through, they should be.

That doesn’t mean they’re always right. It means they’re not controlled.

This generation is done playing someone else’s war game with someone else’s talking points.

If you want their support, you’ll have to earn it — with authenticity and transparency.

So when they say they’re open to socialism, what they really mean is:

“We want a system that actually works. And this one doesn’t.”

So…let’s lead them and persuade them of a better economy, built on widely-dispersed prosperity that prioritizes American workers and small businesses. One that protects against predatory trade practices and halts the flood of foreign workers inot our homeland.

Localism. Ownership. Sovereignty. They want a system that rewards real work—not credentials, not connections, not corporate lies.

They’re cynical, skeptical, and absolutely justified.

And now it’s on us — especially Gen X, to do what no one else has done:

Tell the truth. Smash the oligopolies. Kill the sacred cows. Restore an economy that works for Main Street, not just Davos.

Gen Z doesn’t need a pep talk.

They need proof.

Steve Cortes is president of the League of American Workers. He directs political campaigns on media, polling, and Hispanic outreach, including Trump 2016/2020 and Vance 2022 US Senate. He is a former broadcaster for Fox News and CNN.

With Congress in its second-to-last week in session for this year, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee released the final bill text of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Sunday night, which allocates a topline of roughly $8 billion over the $892.6 billion the Department of Defense had requested, and what the House version of the NDAA provided which stuck to the Pentagon's request. 

The NDAA is the annual law passed by Congress that sets the budget, policies, and legal authorities for the U.S. military and national defense programs. It shapes everything from troop pay to weapons development and foreign military aid.

"This year’s National Defense Authorization Act helps advance President Trump and Republicans’ Peace Through Strength Agenda by codifying 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, ending woke ideology at the Pentagon, securing the border, revitalizing the defense industrial base, and restoring the warrior ethos," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a Sunday statement. 

The $8B increase is a 'compromise' - as the Senate tried to jack the budget up by $32 billion over the department's request. According to Breaking Defense, Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, noted that appropriators would have the last word on the final budget, but was optimistic that the $8 bullion figure was in the ballpark.

 "We’re going to put a marker out there that’s like $8 billion above the president’s budget, but we’ll see. It’ll depend on what the appropriators work out," the DC Democrat told the outlet. 

According to a House Armed Services Committee fact sheet, the NDAA procurement plan includes: 

• $26 billion for shipbuilding
• $38 billion for aircraft, including "full funding" for the Navy's F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter
• $4 billion for ground vehicles
• $25 billion for munitions
• $145.7 billion for hypersonics, AI, quantum, directed energy and autonomy
• An estimated $685 million for Israel-specific missile defense (Iron Dome, Arrow, David's Sling) which is separate of ~$3.3 billion in non-NDAA aid
• $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for both FY26 and FY27. Congrats to all involved.

Also included are: 

Servicemember Pay and Quality of Life: Provides a **3.8% pay raise**, expands bonuses and special pays, increases family separation allowances, and invests heavily in barracks/housing ($1.5B), childcare ($491M), dining facilities, healthcare improvements, and schools/Impact Aid.

Elimination of DEI and "Woke" Policies: Permanently repeals all DoD DEI offices, programs, training, and activities; prohibits new ones; ensures merit-based promotions, accessions, and command selections (no consideration of race/ethnicity/gender); bans men from women's sports at military academies; cuts funding for related initiatives.

Border Security Support: Fully funds DoD assistance to border security, including National Guard/active-duty deployments, establishment of National Defense Areas, contractor support to CBP, and over $1B for counter-drug/trafficking efforts.

Acquisition and Bureaucracy Reforms (SPEED Act): Implements major reforms to accelerate procurement, prioritize commercial solutions, reduce regulatory burdens, centralize management, empower the acquisition workforce, and streamline processes for faster delivery of innovative technologies.

Defense Industrial Base Revitalization: Establishes funds and programs for capacity investments (including critical minerals), multi-year munitions contracts, supply chain transparency (especially vs. China risks), advanced manufacturing (e.g., 3D printing, robotics), and small business/unmanned systems support.

Missile Defense and "Golden Dome": Updates policy and funds development of the Golden Dome integrated missile defense system; additional funding for THAAD, SM-3, Patriot; codifies related executive orders.

Nuclear Modernization and Deterrence: Fully funds nuclear triad (Sentinel ICBM, Columbia-class, SLCM-N); accelerates programs; codifies advanced nuclear reactor deployment and energy independence initiatives.

Deterring China/Indo-Pacific Focus: Extends and increases funding for Pacific Deterrence Initiative; prohibits acquisitions from China-linked entities (biotech, minerals, drones, solar, etc.); $2.7B+ for regional MILCON/logistics; full funding for Taiwan cooperation, Philippines assistance, and exercises.

Innovation and Technology: Advances AI, biotechnology, quantum, cyber, and software acquisition; establishes new offices/programs for rapid adoption; protects against foreign threats to infrastructure/cloud.

According to the DoD, they found nearly $20B in savings through cuts to climate programs ($1.6B), DEI ($40M+), obsolete assets, bureaucracy, consulting, and inefficient programs, while aligning civilian workforce reforms with broader civil service changes. The NDAA's stated goals are "peace through strength," restoring lethality and meritocracy, revitalizing industry, countering China, and implementing conservative policy priorities while delivering significant troop support and procurement investments.

As Breaking Defense notes further; 

• Section 1249 attempts to places a brake on the withdrawal of US forces from Europe by requiring specific certifications be handed into Congress for 60 days before forces drop below 76,000 in European Command’s area of responsibility. That same prohibition covers any attempts to “divest, consolidate or otherwise return to a host country any parcel of land or facility” currently under control of EUCOM, or to attempt to relinquish the role of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander. 
• The NDAA extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative by $400 million for both FY26 and FY27.
• It also repeals the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for Iraq.
• Not included: any language renaming the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.” While President Donald Trump has authorized the use of Department of War as a nickname and it has been taken up by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that title cannot be made official without congressional action.

Obama-What?

As Punchbowl News observes, lawmakers are not that motivated to deal with the expiring Obamacare subsidies - though apparently "GOP senators who represent dueling ideological factions in the Republican Conference are teaming up on a plan to extend the Obamacare subsidies for two years with income caps and other reforms."

The new proposal from Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno (Ohio) and Susan Collins (Maine), outlined in this one-pager, would cap income eligibility and eliminate zero-premium plans by requiring a $25 minimum monthly payment.

Under the Moreno-led plan, the full tax credit would be available for households with income of up to 400% of the poverty level, and then gradually phase out so that households making over $200,000 would no longer benefit.

It comes as the Senate is set to vote this week — likely Thursday — on Democratic legislation that extends the tax credits for three years, a promise Senate Majority Leader John Thune made to end the recent government shutdown. This won’t get anywhere close to 60 votes.

But Senate Republicans aren’t expected to hold a separate vote on a unified proposal of their own, a dynamic that’s fueling some GOP frustration with Thune, as we reported Friday. -Punchbowl

That said, the reality is that there isn't yet an alternative to the Democrats' legislation that unites Republicans, while Senate GOP leaders wouldn't want to promote Democrat messaging on a bill with a vote that splinters the GOP. So, expect more wheel spinning.