Twitter ‘Leak’ Provides Unintended Insight Into Trump Immigration Enforcement

A small firestorm has erupted in certain corners over a leak on X (formerly Twitter) revealing that ICE was planning “raids” in Northern Virginia looking for somewhere between 75 and 100 migrants. Ignore the controversy if possible and you’ll see that the leaker — likely inadvertently — provides useful insight into how President Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, is carrying out his boss’s orders. Homan wants to get criminal aliens off the street, and he plainly is using the criminal provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), not just the civil statutes, to do so.

“ICE RAIDS Are Planned”

On Sunday afternoon, one Pablo Manriquez tweeted the following:

There are many issues with leaking criminal enforcement information of this sort. First, tipping off the targets of those operations endangers the ICE officers who will be performing them.

Wanted criminals generally don’t want to be caught, and while armed resistance is (fortunately) rare, federal officers have been killed and grievously wounded serving warrants, as I explained in June 2019.

Second, and logically, tipoffs of this sort allow would-be targets of law-enforcement operations to evade apprehension, which in turn undermines law enforcement generally.

Third, assuming that Manriquez is telling the truth, he has “multiple sources” who are feeding him highly sensitive information that puts bad actors in a position to either prepare an ambush or to flee.

Logically, those sources are in law enforcement or the judiciary, and if they are so upset at the prospect of ICE taking criminals off the streets, they should either go public and advocate for changes or quit and get into a different line of work.

Perhaps the leakers view themselves as righteous do-gooders, but there’s a line between whistleblowing and conspiracy, and they may have crossed it. In any event, there are legal avenues true whistleblowers can access, and it’s not through gadflies on X.

Criminal Immigration Offenses

While most focus solely on the civil penalties in the INA (Title 8 of the U.S Code) — chief among them deportation — that law is chockful of criminal penalties as well.

Section 274 of the INA, “Bringing in and harboring certain aliens”, is the main smuggling statute in the federal code, and it makes it a crime to: bring illegal aliens to the United States; transport such aliens in this country; “conceal, harbor, or shield” such aliens from detection; “encourage or induce” such aliens to live here; and conspire to perform any of those acts.

Every one of those crimes is a felony, carrying penalties of between five years, life imprisonment, and the death penalty depending on the circumstances of the offense.

Then, there’s section 275 of the INA, “Improper entry by alien”. Under that provision, entering illegally is a federal misdemeanor for a first offense (carrying a sentence of up to six months imprisonment) and a two-year felony for subsequent ones.

That’s not to be confused with § 276 of the INA, “Reentry of removed aliens”. That provision only applies to aliens who have been denied admission or formally ordered from the United States and who then illegally reenter, carrying a baseline federal felony sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment and enhancements of up to 20 years.

Title 18 — the federal criminal code — includes a provision, § 1546, captioned “Fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents”. As the title suggests that section of the code makes it a crime to engage in fraud when seeking immigration benefits, to “forge, counterfeit, alter, or falsely make” immigration documents, or to knowingly utter, use, or possess such documents.

Upper-level sentences for violations of that provision range from between five and 25 years — all federal felonies.

There are a whole raft of human-trafficking provisions in title 18 as well: § 1589, “Forced Labor”; § 1590, “Trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor”; § 1591, “Sex Trafficking of Children or by Force, Fraud or Coercion”; and § 1592, “Unlawful Conduct with Respect to Documents in Furtherance of Trafficking, Peonage, Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, or Forced Labor”.

For starters.

Not all of those trafficking offenses involve aliens, but as the Center has explained in the past, many of the Biden administration’s various immigration policies were a boon to human traffickers, and it will take years before the full scope of the damage is tallied — assuming it can all ever be assessed.

The foregoing statutes just scratch the surface, because ICE is authorized by statute to assist in enforcing in the enforcement of any criminal statute, especially the ones in which the suspects are aliens.

That includes statutes that criminalize drug trafficking.

“Judicial Warrants”

Which brings me to the “judicial warrant” part of that tweet.

One dodge common to many sanctuary jurisdictions is a contention that they aren’t “sanctuaries” at all. They are more than happy to detain hardened criminal aliens for ICE to interview and take them into custody — they simply require a judicial warrant to do so.

For example, consider the following from Executive Order 135-19, issued by the county executive of Montgomery County, Md., one of the nation’s most notorious sanctuary jurisdictions:

Immigration detainers, that are not accompanied by judicial warrants, are civil detainers for which the federal government bears sole responsibility.

…

No agent or department may arrest or detain a person based on an Administrative Warrant, an Immigration Detainer, or any other directive by DHS, on a belief that the person is not present legally in the United States or has committed a civil immigration violation. [Emphasis added.]

Or the following directive, issued by the county board in nearby Arlington County, Va. in July 2022 and updated following Trump’s second election in late November 2024:

Arlington’s Commitment to Strengthening Trust with Our Immigrant Communities

…

It is not an appropriate use of Arlington County resources to engage in the enforcement of federal immigration law, which is the sole responsibility of the Federal government.

…

Employees shall neither participate in nor facilitate civil immigration enforcement operations, unless otherwise required by an applicable state or federal law, criminal judicial warrant, court order or subpoena deemed applicable by the County Attorney. [Emphasis added.]

The problem, as I explained in June 2019, is that ICE doesn’t seek — and federal courts don’t issue — judicial warrants in civil immigration cases.

But as the Manriquez tweet indicates, ICE officers have secured them in the 75 to 100 alleged cases that he references in Northern Virginia. That means that the targets aren’t so-called “law abiding” aliens, or grandmothers babysitting kids while moms and dads are at work — the targets are criminal aliens wanted for criminal offenses.

At the Republican National Convention in July, Homan warned all illegal aliens that they “better start packing now”, but a month before the inauguration, he stated that the Trump administration would start by “deporting criminals, gang members and fugitives”.

Still, Homan maintained, “If you’re here illegally, you’re not off the table. It’s a violation of the law; it’s a crime to enter this country illegally.”

The border czar has been battling sanctuary leaders in Northern Virginia and elsewhere for well over a decade, and he has plainly gotten good at playing their word games, especially if Pablo Manriquez’s March 2 tweet is correct.

Homan’s not just bringing ICE officers to find aliens in the sanctuary belt of Northern Virginia — he’s bringing warrants, meaning the targets are wanted criminals, many likely wanted for the worst imaginable offenses. Manriquez’s sources may want to rethink the company they keep — and the potential damage they are doing.