Democrat lawmakers in Georgia have proposed legislation to prevent taxpayer money from being used to build U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the state.  Georgia state Sen. Jaha Howard introduced the bill in response to ICE’s reported plans to build facilities in Social Circle and Oakwood. He was joined by state Sen. RaShaun Kemp and South Fulton City Councilwoman Helen Zenobia Willis to announce the legislation.  “We are here because of a proposal of a 10,000-bed detention facility in a town with fewer than 5,000 residents. That should give every Georgian pause,” Howard said, according to CBS News Atlanta.  The South Fulton City Council recently voted to move forward with zoning changes aimed at blocking ICE detention facilities. The Department of Homeland Security, however, plans to continue expanding detention space in Georgia.  The local opposition follows President Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of illegal aliens—and backlash that has ensued in communities like Minneapolis, where protests led to violent confrontations with ICE. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll last week revealed that 61% of Americans support the deportation of illegal aliens, even as an equal number don’t agree with ICE’s tactics.  Working Together  Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said the administration valued collaboration with local leaders.  “Secretary Noem has stated that she is willing to work with officials on both sides of the aisle to expand detention space to help ICE law enforcement carry out the largest deportation effort in American history,” McLaughlin said.  She added that “ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and more,” noting that 70% of ICE arrests involve illegal aliens charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States.  “Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, ICE has new funding to expand detention space to keep these criminals off American streets before they are removed for good from our communities,” she said.  Georgia state Rep. Houston Gaines told The Daily Signal that he has worked closely with ICE to promote public safety in Georgia.   “In the wake of Laken Riley’s murder, I led the effort in the Georgia House to pass House Bill 1105, legislation that mandates cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration authorities,” Gaines said. “It includes criminal penalties for any local officials who fail to do so. The goal was simple: ensure that criminals who are in this country illegally are identified, reported, and removed.”   “In Georgia, the law is clear: law enforcement must cooperate. Period,” Gaines added “And the results are undeniable.”  Moving Forward  McLaughlin encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to sign 287(g) agreements, which allow cooperation with ICE to identify and remove criminal illegal aliens. “Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country,” she said.  McLaughlin also said seven of the top 10 safest cities in the United States cooperate with ICE and noted that local law enforcement cooperation has led to 40,000 arrests in Florida.  Big Picture  Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. has made his views on ICE clear, calling the agency a “beast” that would “consume the bodies of ordinary citizens.”  They made ICE larger than all of the federal law enforcement agencies combined.When you build a beast that large, it's got to eat.And we're witnessing it eat and consume the bodies of ordinary citizens. It is out of control.— Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (@SenatorWarnock) February 6, 2026 Brandy Perez Carbaugh, a research assistant with the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, criticized leaders in Georgia for their lack of cooperation.  “Lawmakers should stop virtue signaling by proposing bills that impede on the federal government’s ability to enforce the law and instead protect the people they represent, not illegal foreigners,” Carbaugh said.  The fight between federal and local officials in Georgia mirrors the national debate over immigration enforcement and the role of ICE.   While Democrats argue the agency poses risks to communities, Republicans maintain it is essential for public safety. As both sides dig in, immigration policy is likely to remain one of the most contentious issues in American politics.  The post Small Georgia Town Is at the Center of Latest ICE Fight  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Most justices appeared skeptical of a federal law banning gun possession for illegal drug users and addicts, during Supreme Court arguments Monday. Intermingling gun rights and the war on drugs, the case has put the ACLU and the NRA on the same side, while Trump’s Justice Department is defending the existing law.  The case comes out of Texas, where a federal grand jury indicted Ali Danial Hemani, a marijuana user, in February 2023 for violating a law prohibiting firearm possession by a user of illegal drugs or a controlled substance. He sued to dismiss the indictment.  The federal prohibition is part of the 1968 Gun Control Act.  Sarah Harris, the principal deputy solicitor general, on Monday argued the law doesn’t infringe on the Second Amendment in part because of longstanding “habitual drunkard” laws that have been around since the colonial era. Those laws impose certain restrictions on individuals with addiction that could pose a danger to themselves or others, she noted. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked, “whether this defendant would qualify as a habitual user.” “The habitual drunkard, the American Temperance Society, back in the day, said has eight shots of whiskey a day, only made you an occasional drunkard,” he said. In the founding era, Gorsuch said, “you had to do double that.” “John Adams took a drink of hard cider with his breakfast every day,” Gorsuch added. “James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much of a user of alcohol; he only had three or four glasses of wine a night.” “Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life under your theory?” Gorsuch asked Harris. Harris replied, “No,” adding of the defendant, “we know he uses marijuana a few times, about every other day.” Harris later explained the law would apply to frequent users of harmful drugs, or those who are addicted.  “An addict is someone who has an uncontrollable urge to use the substance, regardless of whether they have access to any particular moment in time. You can be an addict and not be an unlawful user, because, for instance, you’re in treatment,” Harris said. She added, “An unlawful user, is someone judged by the objective criteria of their frequency of use and adding to someone who has an uncontrolled urge. They can overlap.” The indictment said Hemani knowingly used illegal drugs while possessing a Glock 19 9mm pistol. The prosecution didn’t allege Hemani was intoxicated or using drugs at the time he possessed the firearm. Rather, prosecutors based their case on him being a regular drug user.  Hemani challenged the indictment. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted the motion and dismissed the indictment, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal. Other conservative justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh on Monday questioned whether the laws on illegal drugs are applicable to the old “habitual drunkard” laws.  Justice Clarence Thomas also asked Harris how the laws she’s citing were different from older laws restricting the freedom of people who claimed to be fortune tellers.  Meanwhile, all three liberal justices seemed skeptical of the government’s argument, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked if this rationale would allow for violating the constitutional rights of homeless people.  Though later in the hearing, Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Hermani’s lawyer Erin Murphy about her arguments that the government should assess such matters on a case-by-case basis.  “If you take the principle underlying habitual drunkards, the concept that the statutes back then require is somebody drinking to such success that they can’t care for themselves or their affairs, that they’ve lost self-control, that they’re posing a public safety risk,” Murphy argued.  Roberts asked, “We’re going to assess those on a case-by-case basis, and apparently on an individual, by individual basis?” Murphy responded the statute effectively calls for an individualized basis. “You have to engage in an analysis of someone’s actual use to figure out whether they’re addicted to a controlled substance,” Murphy argued. “If the government wants to try to say a particular substance is so categorically addictive, dangerous, that you can’t use it regularly, OK, but it has to do that under the burden of proof.” Roberts brought up older laws that prohibited firing a gun on New Year’s Eve and the current day restrictions on taking a gun into a courthouse.  “It does indicate there’s some categories of views that were prohibited at the founding, whether it’s habitual drunkards, and in terms of the illegal use, based on particular individuals, or categories, or geographic limitations,” Roberts said.  The post Justice Questions if Founders Would Be ‘Disarmed for Life’ Under Federal Drug Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A fight over Virginia’s congressional maps is heating up, with Republicans and Democrats locked in a legal battle that could reshape the state’s representation in Washington.  Virginia voters were originally scheduled to head to the polls April 21 to decide on a referendum on new congressional maps as the state’s Supreme Court reviewed a legal challenge. The proposed constitutional amendment would allow the General Assembly to redraw districts before the 2026 midterm elections.  Republicans, including House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, sued to block the vote, arguing Democrats did not follow proper procedures. A lower court initially sided with Republicans, but the state’s high court ruled the referendum could proceed while legal arguments continued.  A Tazewell County judge has since issued a temporary restraining order blocking the April 21 referendum, pausing the vote as litigation continues.  The outcome could reshape Virginia’s congressional districts and influence the state’s political landscape ahead of the midterms.  J. Garren Shipley, communications director for Kilgore, told The Daily Signal that Republicans view the measure as a rollback of Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting reforms.  “Republicans opposed the referendum for a simple reason: In 2020, voters gave control of Virginia’s maps to a bipartisan commission. The process was designed to ensure that no one party could gerrymander the other. This referendum is an attempt to do away with those changes and put politicians in smoke filled rooms back in charge,” Shipley said.  He also criticized the legislative process behind the amendment, arguing that it lacked bipartisan input and transparency and “millions of Virginians who voted for nonpartisan map drawing are having their voices ignored by this process,” Shipley said  “The biggest challenge right now,” he added, “is ensuring that Virginians know that the vote to ‘restore fairness,’ according to the ballot language, is actually a naked power grab.”  Democrats said the earlier court ruling was a win for voters.   Democrat House Speaker Don Scott said, “The fact that they said in their order, which is unusual, that this order, this decision, in no way impacts their ability for us to hold an election, tells you everything you need to know.”  Early voting, originally set to begin March 6, is now on hold pending the outcome of the ongoing legal appeals.  The post Virginia Court Fight Leaves Congressional Maps in Limbo  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A chief concern following the launch of Operation Epic Fury is Iranian-backed terrorist cells in the United states, security experts are warning. It is impossible to know who crossed the border during the four years of the Biden administration, “but we do know there were a number of folks on the terrorist watch list,” said Victoria Coates, vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. It is critical, Coates warned, that “everybody pay attention right now. Watch. If you see something, say something.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered nearly 400 illegal aliens with “terrorism-related records” between ports of entry during the Biden administration, according to the agency’s data. Additionally, about two million “known gotaways” crossed the border to enter the U.S. during the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency, according to the House Homeland Security Committee. “So, it is entirely possible in those millions of folks who came across … that there were Hezbollah sleeper cells coming up from Venezuela, which we know Nicolas Maduro was pushing them to do, and that they could be here in the United States,” Coates told The Daily Signal. “These folks aren’t geniuses, but they’re deeply, deeply dangerous, and they can spring up anywhere,” she said. “And so, my biggest concern is actually here at home.” Following the launch of the U.S.-Israel attack, Iran is a bit like “a wild animal in a cage – cornered, boxed in,” Jacob Olidort, director of American Security at the America First Policy Institute, told The Daily Signal.   “Out of desperation, you know, it’s hard to anticipate exactly fully how Iran might escalate, but I think some of the known would be more barrages and drones. It would also be activating its sleeper cells,” Olidort said.   While Olidort urged “prudence and caution,” he said U.S. intelligence likely has “broad awareness within the United States as well, I suspect, of [Iranian-backed] activities and threats.”  On Sunday, just after the U.S. and Israel launched their joint attack on Iran, a man wearing a “Property of Allah” sweatshirt and a shirt with an Iranian flag design was arrested for allegedly carrying out a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. The shooting left two people dead and another 14 injured at a bar near the University of Texas–Austin campus, the New York Post reports. The suspected shooter, identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, entered the U.S. from Senegal in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen in 2013, according to The Post. The FBI is investigating the incident as a possible act of terrorism following U.S. actions in Iran, according to multiple sources. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that she is in “direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.” Last June, a DHS National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin warned of the possibility of domestic threats on the day the U.S. bombed several of Iran’s nuclear facilities. “The ongoing Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States,” the June 22, 2025 bulletin stated. “US law enforcement has disrupted multiple potentially lethal Iranian-backed plots in the United States since 2020. During this timeframe, the Iranian government has also unsuccessfully targeted critics of its regime who are based in the Homeland for lethal attack.” The post Terrorist Threat in the US: ‘Stay on High Alert’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald J. Trump could not have made it easier for congressional Democrats. During Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Trump’s simple offer to them, and their Republican counterparts, was like a college professor telling his students: “Anyone who wants 10 points of extra credit, please stand up if you believe the Earth is round.” Trump’s challenge to senators and House members was equally simple. As he put it: “I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” At once, Republicans bolted upright and heartily applauded an anodyne declaration with which at least 90% of Americans surely concur. Some, perhaps most, illegal aliens grudgingly would approve. And yet Democrats sat there, flat in their chairs, neither standing nor cheering a tenet as basic as asserting that parents’ primary responsibility is to feed their children rather than nourish people who break into their homes. Democrats silently scowled as Americans watched in astonishment:  “Wow!” viewers must have thought. “These people really do hate America. They root for illegal aliens, at the expense of U.S. citizens. Republicans have suggested that. And they are right!” This continued for one minute and 50 seconds. Each moment was more damning than the last—like watching a Polaroid photo of a crime scene grow clearer and more incriminating as the clock ticked away. “Isn’t that a shame?” the President asked Democrats, after the Republican ovation finally tapered off. Trump must have been stunned at how serenely his tormentors marched into his trap and made themselves right at home. “You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” Trump added. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Ashamed, indeed. And now citizens have seen proof of what they previously might have suspected: The Democrats no longer are the party of the American people, the middle class, workers, or even the poor. The modern Democrat Party seats illegal aliens up front, while American citizens ride in the back of the bus, ideally with their big mouths shut. Under President Joe Biden’s four-year reign of error, Democrats imposed this new policy with a vengeance, even as they relentlessly lied that “the border is closed.” Democrats treat illegal aliens better than American citizens: • Some 7.4 million illegal aliens invaded America under Biden, Pew Research calculates. Democrats rolled out the red carpet. They let illegals enter without COVID-19 tests or vaccines. Meanwhile, Democrats furiously inflicted COVID-19 test-and-inoculation mandates on citizens. • Democrats handed illegal aliens complimentary jet transit to speed them into the nation’s interior. Democrats offered citizens no such free airfare. • Democrats let illegal aliens board commercial jets with as little as their Border Patrol arrest documents for identification. Democrats never exempted citizens from presenting proper ID at TSA checkpoints.  • Millions of illegal aliens reached metropolises including New York City. Democrats ushered them into the Roosevelt Hotel, Times Square’s Row Hotel, and other tourist-class establishments—all for free. Meanwhile, American citizens who visit Gotham pay top dollar for lodging. • While Democrats in Stoughton, Massachusetts, supplied buses for illegal-alien children living in shelters, 150 American-citizen kids lost their rides to school. •Back in Manhattan, Democrats handed illegal-alien children Public School 141 (opened in 1961). To accommodate them, Democrats displaced some 170 predominantly black and Hispanic students with autism and other special needs. Democrats condemned these young American citizens to the poorly equipped former Ascension School (built in 1911). Congressional Democrats lacked the political savvy to stand up beside Republicans and at least pretend that they prefer American citizens to illegal aliens. The fact that Democrats could not even fake this sincerity demonstrates the intensity of their affection for illegal aliens and the severity of their contempt for U.S. citizens. Come November, hundreds of millions of American voters should return the favor. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post It’s Official: Illegal Alien-Loving Dems Cannot Stand American Citizens appeared first on The Daily Signal.