Read their lips, tweets and releases: If you’re not a U.S. citizen, you’re probably an illegal immigrant and deportable

The other day, on Feb. 25, Kristi Noem, Trump’s head of the Hestafo (Homeland Security Task Forces), tried to make things as clear as possible. 

If you’re not a citizen, you’re probably an illegal immigrant and deportable. 

Don’t take my words for it, though I tried to make that known a month ago after 12 Senate Democrats collaborated with the Republican consensus to enact the Laken Riley Act, which along with Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the American People from Invasion signed nine days earlier meant that almost all aliens, including green card holders (lawful permanent residents), asylum seekers, refugees, even some students on F1 visas are illegal, according to Trump and Hestafo. 

I wrote then that it “can matter in nefarious and intended ways.” 

[Read Enter the Hestafo and language resistance

https://jackdoppelt.blogspot.com/2025/01/enter-hestafo-and-language-resistance.html]

Few watchdogs noticed. Most glaringly the 12 Senate Democrats - Cortez Masto, Fetterman, Gallego, Hassan, Kelly, Ossoff, Peters, Rosen, Shaheen, Slotkin, Warner and Warnock – chose not to notice. 

Time to notice now and read Noem’s words. Warning: Watch out for slick double speak. Here’s her announcement:

Please take the time to note that the release opens with the familiar undesirables - “illegal aliens,” who go hand in hand with criminals, like those spelled out in the Laken Riley Act, “who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting” or those now called out on ICE’s official X account as “THE WORST FIRST.” 

Keep reading Noem’s pledge. Hestafo is seeking out aliens who “willfully fail to leave the U.S.,” who fail to register with the federal government and be fingerprinted,” who “fail to apprise the federal government of changes to their address.” 

If you’re thinking that applies only to “illegal immigrants,” you’re missing the slick trick. Those acts are what make ALL aliens illegal, and as Noem wrote, “For decades, this law has been ignored-not anymore.” 

It continues: “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws-we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce.” 

With the reminder that they’re now illegal, aliens are being asked to leave voluntarily, or self-deport, now. 

That tends to change the message from THE WORST FIRST” gunslinger image to an OTHERS, HEAR ME: OUT NOW Hestafo message. 

The day after Noem's Feb. 25 message, she issued another one, boasting that under Trump, "more than 20,000 illegal aliens were arrested. That's a 627% increase in monthly arrests, compared to just 33,000 at large arrests under Biden for ALL of last year."

Seemingly out of the annals of Monty Python's British comedy routines, these numbers are a collection from the Ministry of Made Up Apples and Oranges data extracted from someone's butt to sound like they're well-oiled stormtroopers, not Keystone Kops. 

Dangerous though for DOGE-guided federal government agencies with badges and guns to make stuff up just as they emerge from hiding behind outdated daily stats last published on Jan. 31 on ICE's official X site that portrayed a different picture. That picture was accompanied by stories in the NewsNation: Tom Homan: ‘I’m not satisfied’ with number of ICE arrests: Trump says immigration arrest numbers are 'too f—— low' and in The New York Post that The Trump administration is demanding at least 1,800 arrests per day. 

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