First Time As Tragedy, Second Time As Farce

Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan told GOP lawmakers to mitigate their expectations for their mass deportation plan, citing limited resources.

Yet another campaign promise they’re walking back.

MAGA is getting conned so hard and they’re sleepwalking through it.

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) January 11, 2025

Earlier Homan said he wants to establish a national “hotline” so people can report those they think are “illegal immigrants” who they suspect have committed crimes. What could go wrong with all the “hot tips” that will produce?

Update:

The suspect in the viral video who was brought into custody yesterday in connection with the Kenneth Fire was not charged with arson or suspected arson because there was "not enough probable cause" after their major crimes investigation.

The man was arrested on a felony… pic.twitter.com/hwxWBJNLCd

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) January 10, 2025

I don’t know what the content of the video was, but my guess is the “suspect” was in the wrong place at the wrong time, if not simply misidentified. So, two lessons:

1) multiply this by a million or so, and how much time is wasted just trying to figure out who the “suspicious person” was that someone says they saw somewhere? How much manpower is misdirected, misused, and simply wasted? Especially when people are not looking for someone who committed an alleged crime, but just people who “look like immigrants” who may have “committed a crime.” My NextDoor feed usually features a few posts in “suspicious persons,” often persons of color, walking through a neighborhood. Now give those people a hotline to report that to. 

This is farcical.

2) seeing is not believing when it comes to criminal OR civil charges.Without evidence, Homan is pissing in the wind. Just because you think you caught the guy you think was committing the crime doesn’t mean you made a case that will stand up in court.

I don’t blame the people who think they caught the guy in the video; not under the circumstances in Los Angeles. But the system assessed the case and found it wanting. What Homan wants is to cover the fact his mouth wrote a check his ass couldn’t cash. He can’t start rounding up 15 million people, so he’ll pretend the American public is doing it for him. And then he’ll report the hotline worked, and the immigrants among us are no more. Well, the bad ones, anyway. Which apparently we’re supposed to spot by looking at them.

And even if we don’t, he’ll tell us he got ‘em.