The United States women’s hockey team won a gold medal in Milan, and President Trump invited them to the State of the Union. However, they will not be going to the White House as part of its ongoing celebrations. They claim it is because of scheduling conflicts. They were polite about it, but obviously, the […] The post Female Hockey Medalists Decline the White House Invitation appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Nationally, since 2000, illegal aliens have committed five million serious crimes, including 200,000 robberies, 100,000 rapes or sexual assaults, and 30,000 murders. Those are some of the crimes we know about. Fewer than a third of murders are solved. None of those crimes should have taken place. Watch the clip for a few of the […] The post Open Borders Fanatics: Everyone Is a Neighbor Except Citizens appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

President Donald Trump promised to carry out a historic mass deportation effort on the campaign trail and has since removed more than 670,000 illegal immigrants from the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shared some of the bad hombres and their rap sheets with The Daily Wire. Here’s what we know about them. Earlier this month, ICE shipped Mexican illegal immigrant Akira Salinas-Ruiz, who brutally shook his then-girlfriend’s 18-month-old baby to death in 2006, out of the country. The toddler, Santiago Teniente Jr., was left with fatal injuries that included abusive head trauma and bruises on his neck and stomach that were consistent with shaken baby syndrome. Salinas-Ruiz was convicted of first-degree reckless homicide on July 11, 2007. He pleaded no contest to his charge and was sentenced to 20 years in a Wisconsin prison. An immigration judge ordered Salinas-Ruiz’s deportation in 2008 while he was behind bars. And on Feb. 17, ICE arrested Salinas-Ruiz after he was released from prison, and has since deported him. Salinas-Ruiz was encountered at the border in 2002 and agreed to “voluntarily return” to Mexico, according to ICE. ICE also deported Salvadoran national Ruben Alonso Hernandez-Lainez, 29, who was convicted of second-degree assault and second-degree rape in Frederick County, Maryland, ICE said. He was arrested just before Maryland passed a law in early February that bars local and state police from communicating with ICE. Hernandez snuck across the border in 2021 and was later caught by Border Patrol agents in May 2022 near Hidalgo, Texas. The agents were “forced to release him … thanks to the Biden administration’s catch-and-release policies” before he went on to assault and rape his victim, according to ICE. Police in Maryland arrested Hernandez for his crimes on May 15, 2023. A judge handed him a conviction in February 2025, sentencing him to three years and four months behind bars with all but 18 months suspended. He was placed on five years of supervised probation. An immigration judge ordered his deportation on Jan. 20, and he was removed from the country ten days later, ICE said. Watch the State of the Union with The Daily Wire! Live coverage from the nation’s capital begins at 7:45 ET. ICE also deported a convicted killer tied to a murder case that went cold. Jamaican illegal immigrant Kemar Hamilton, who was deported on Jan. 8, was convicted of the killing of 58-year-old Jamaican immigrant Edgar McCalla. Hamilton shot McCalla, who was the father of seven children, during a 2009 robbery outside of the victim’s Bronx home before fleeing the scene. It was just one year after he crossed the border illegally. While searching the murder scene, police found a prepaid cell phone left behind by the killer. The DNA from the phone, however, didn’t yield a match, and the case went cold. Two years later, police arrested Hamilton after pulling him over for a traffic violation and finding a loaded firearm in his car. The officers then matched his DNA to the cold case. By that time, he had already received a deportation order. He was sentenced to over a decade in prison and was scooped up by ICE on Oct. 6 as he was being released from prison in Alden, New York. While Trump’s deportation numbers fall short of his past-stated goal of carrying out one million removals each year, more than 2 million illegal immigrants have “self-deported,” leaving on their own, according to ICE. “Immigration enforcement plays a critical role in public safety,” Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement. “Criminal illegal aliens like these, who completely disregard our immigration laws and our criminal laws, don’t belong in the United States — and ICE is going to continue keeping our cities, communities and neighborhoods safe by arresting and removing them,” Lyons added.

When President Trump addresses the nation tonight, Jimmy Lai’s daughter, Claire Lai, will sit in the chamber as a reminder that the Chinese Communist Party is still punishing dissidents who dared to believe in freedom. Earlier this month, we learned of the near-life sentence handed down to the Hong Kong democracy advocate. But Lai is not merely a symbol of Beijing’s repression. He is a British citizen. And if it takes an American president to elevate his cause before the world, it raises an uncomfortable question for Prime Minister Keir Starmer: what, exactly, is British citizenship worth? Jimmy Lai’s life reads like a true rags-to-riches story. Born in mainland China, a 12-year-old Lai traveled by boat to what at the time was British Hong Kong with no money to his name. Finding work in the garment industry, Lai climbed his way up from the factory floor to achieve billionaire status. He could have rested on his laurels and gone quietly into retirement, but that is not who Jimmy Lai is. Lai recognizes that his rise is thanks to the rights and freedoms Hong Kongers grew accustomed to, thanks to years as a British colony. Promising decades of autonomy and freedom under the handover, the CCP gradually whittled down the freedoms enjoyed in the city. Jimmy Lai refused to take these encroachments lying down, engaging in memorials of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and publishing pro-democracy content in the Apple Daily, the newspaper he founded. Therefore, it was no shock that Lai incurred the wrath of the CCP in the form of the National Security Law (NSL), under which he was arrested in 2020 for allegedly colluding with foreign forces. Enter Keir Starmer, the British prime minister. While Starmer’s government has voiced opposition to Lai’s imprisonment, it has thus far been unsuccessful in securing Lai’s release. So why is the conviction of a Chinese citizen the business of Starmer or Great Britain in general? After all, a spokesman for the Chinese government denounced criticism of Lai’s conviction as interference in an internal affair. However, there are several reasons why this issue matters to the British Government. First, Hong Kong is not just a former British colony — it is a city in which Britain has treaty obligations. As a signatory to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the UK is responsible for ensuring that China fulfills its promise to allow autonomy in Hong Kong. For Jimmy Lai specifically, he is a British passport holder and therefore a British citizen. Keir Starmer is as responsible for Jimmy Lai’s safety as he is for any other British citizen unjustly detained abroad. Jimmy Lai is not the only British citizen being held in a foreign prison. Estimates are that there are thousands of Brits detained or arrested in foreign countries. Jagtar Singh Johal has been imprisoned in India since 2017 after he confessed to involvement in a murder after police tortured a confession out of him. Every day that Jimmy Lai, Jagtar Singh Johal, and many others sit in prison is a day that Starmer is failing his citizenry. What can Starmer do to help people like Jimmy Lai? For starters, he can stop treating the Chinese government like a friendly nation. The Jimmy Lai conviction is one of many examples where Starmer has been soft on China. His recent visit to Beijing focused on trade and tourism, but Starmer claims that he raised the issue of Lai’s release when he was in China. This casual approach isn’t going to cut it. Unjust imprisonment is not some tertiary issue in diplomacy. What good are reduced tariffs on whiskey if British citizens aren’t safe when they travel to China? If Keir Starmer wants to free Jimmy Lai and the other dissidents in Hong Kong, he needs to get tough on the Chinese government. First, trade negotiations need to stop until Lai is released from prison. The UK is failing its obligations to Hong Kong; now is the time to change course. Second, Starmer needs to shut down the Chinese mega-embassy project in London. Not only does the mega-embassy put critical communication cables at risk, but its construction will also allow the CCP to expand the transnational repression of other Hong Kong democracy advocates living in London. If Britain can’t protect its citizens abroad, the very least it can do is protect them on British territory. Keir Starmer’s tenure at 10 Downing Street has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, but his handling of the Jimmy Lai arrest only adds fuel to the fire. While Starmer’s days as PM might be limited, he can right this wrong if he acts quickly. By securing Jimmy Lai’s freedom, Keir Starmer will establish Britain’s diplomatic influence and potentially serve as a deterrent to other regimes hoping to illegally detain British citizens. * * * Matt Cookson is an alumnus of the Young Voices Contributor Program and was a Middle East History and Policy Fellow with Young Voices. He also works in the supply chain for a U.S. Defense Contractor. His commentary has appeared in the Mises Institute, Real Clear Politics, the National Interest, Providence Magazine, China Source, and the Idaho Freedom Foundation. You can follow him on X @MattCookson95 and Substack @thewaythecookiecrumbles. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

In New York City, there’s been a gigantic freeze, a freeze that has not only beset New York City but also the rest of the East Coast. In Washington Square Park, a group of people started hurling snowballs at several NYPD officers responding to a call. Not playfully either. They were actually trying to hurt them. They hurled objects at the police officers. Every one of these individuals should be identified, arrested, and sent to jail — every single one of them. Hurling objects at police officers, assaulting police officers, mobs of people, some of them masked, trying to assault police officers — this is 1970s-style disorder in New York City. And yes, it has been prompted and promoted by people like Zohran Mamdani. The attitude that governance has toward people who are hoodlums in the streets has a marked impact on whether or not people act like hoodlums in the street. Forget about the broken windows theory. How about this: Attack a cop, you go to jail. Pretty simple. But the rising level of disorder and chaos we now see in the country is a direct result of governance decisions being made in blue cities, particularly by the people who actually run those blue cities. Does anyone think it has no impact on how people think of the cops that Zohran Mamdani has spent his entire career — prior to being elected mayor of New York — ripping on the cops and suggesting that they are a nefarious force for viciousness? Of course, it has an impact. Every single one of those people pelting the NYPD with snowballs should go to jail. Those are full-grown adults, by the way. Those are not kids. You’re not talking about misbegotten 15-year-old juvenile delinquents who get frisky with the cops. If you look at the video, you can see people standing there, and when the cops arrive, they start hurling objects at them. Jessica Tisch, who is the commissioner of the NYPD, put out this statement: “The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: the behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal. Our detectives are investigating this matter.” The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal. Our detectives are investigating this matter. — Jessica S. Tisch (@NYPDPC) February 24, 2026 Credit: @NYPDPC/X.com The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association stated, “This is the environment that NYC police officers are up against. Our police officers are being treated for their injuries, but the case CANNOT end there. The individuals involved must be identified, arrested and charged with assault on a police officer. And all of our city leaders must speak up to condemn this despicable attack.” The fact is, this attitude toward the police has become commonplace in the United States. Beginning in 2014, you had the Ferguson riots, justified by the president of the United States. Americans didn’t like that; Donald Trump was elected. You saw a reversion to a law-and-order attitude at the top, but in 2020, the anti-police attitude broke out anew on a much bigger scale. Now you have blue cities that are being taken over by people who are effectively defund-the-police advocates. Those advocates may turn around and claim they want to work with the cops, but it’s too late: message received. This disorder comes from the top. It does not come from the bottom. A disordered government leads to a disordered citizenry.  There’s a reason that we use the phrase “law and order.” It’s not just law; order also has to be implemented.  Speaking of Zohran Mamdani — who has totally changed the policy in New York City with regard to getting people off the streets in the middle of blizzards, and then a bunch of people died — he’s saying that people actually died from overdoses, not because they were freezing.  You’re doing a great job, Mayor Uselessness.  “We have more than 500 homeless outreach workers who have been traversing the five boroughs looking to connect homeless New Yorkers with services and support,” he declared. “And what we’ve also learned is the tools that were effective over the course of the prolonged cold period —again, a historic period of subfreezing conditions — those are ones we’ve employed from the very first day of our response to this one. I’ll give you one example. A number of those New Yorkers who lost their lives. The preliminary indications came that it was from an overdose-related death.”  Watch the State of the Union with The Daily Wire! Live coverage from the nation’s capital begins at 7:45 ET. It might have helped if he had forced those people to go inside. Perhaps if he didn’t let people sleep outdoors at all —regardless of the weather —people would die less often of drug overdoses on the street.  But Mayor Smarmy over there grins at the camera.  Always.  And then through that gritted, smarmy smile, he utters the most inane platitudes.  New Yorkers: You broke it. You bought it.

'You should really do some self-reflection'

'Indoctrinating them into far-left ideology'