IF ICE DOESN’T FIND THEM, WHO WILL?
By R.D. Milano
NewsXR Editorial
A 12-year-old girl was killed in Houston. The two men accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and strangling her had already been in federal custody and been released pending immigration hearings. Now consider the officers tasked with finding people whose identities remain unresolved, whose court dates have passed, or whose removal orders remain outstanding. Some of those people are dangerous, and the consequences of failing to find them can fall on someone who knows nothing about Washington’s political battles. Before anger at Donald Trump becomes a verdict against everyone wearing an ICE badge, Americans deserve a clear account of the work those officers are being asked to do.
My fellow Americans, please stop with that question for a moment. If ICE doesn’t find them, who will? Who takes responsibility for finding someone who should be in custody before another family receives the worst telephone call of its life? We cannot answer that question with how much we love or hate the President. Someone still has to do the work and accept the danger that comes with it.
The Houston defendants, Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, are presumed innocent unless convicted. According to ICE, both entered the country illegally, were apprehended, and were released with notices to appear in immigration court. They were arrested in the murder case before their reported immigration hearing dates. The question here is what the government knew when it released them and whether the safeguards were adequate. The accusations against them make that question painfully urgent.
Former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg later disclosed an allegation that Peña Ramos had previously raped an American woman in Costa Rica. According to Ogg, the woman came forward after seeing his photograph in coverage of the Houston case. That remains an allegation, and we must describe it honestly. But information emerging after a child’s death cannot protect that child. Families deserve a serious effort to discover danger before it reaches them.
Other cases have already ended in convictions. José Antonio Ibarra was released into the United States in 2022 and later murdered Laken Riley. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez entered unlawfully and later raped and murdered Rachel Morin. These were real women with people who loved them, ordinary lives to live, and futures that someone took away. Their families are left carrying losses that no election victory or policy announcement can repair.
There were missed opportunities involving local custody, too. ICE said Luis Rodrigo Perez was released from a New Jersey jail without the notification it had requested; he later killed three people in Missouri and was convicted. In Oregon, Sergio Martinez was released following an ICE notification request and later committed violent attacks against two women. These cases explain why cooperation between local authorities and immigration officers matters. When someone dangerous is already in custody, a failed handoff can have devastating consequences.
Federal watchdogs have documented weaknesses in verifying some migrants’ identities and maintaining reliable information about where they went after release. An inspector general investigation also found that a migrant was released before officials resolved a potential terrorism-watchlist match. Subsequent screening confirmed the match, and ICE had to find the individual again. A watchlist match is not a terrorism conviction, but resolving a security alert is essential government work. These failures deserve correction, and the people assigned to address them deserve the resources and public understanding necessary to do it.
The scale is difficult to picture. Approximately 3.8 million migrants were released pending immigration proceedings during the Biden administration, according to reporting based on DHS data. Separately, DHS reported that more than 1.4 million people outside ICE detention had final removal orders in November 2024, a population accumulated across administrations. These figures describe different groups and cannot be added together as one count of fugitives. They nevertheless reveal an enormous amount of unfinished work.
DHS also recorded 453,990 removal orders issued after missed hearings during fiscal years 2021 through 2024. Subsequent departures, removals, arrests, and rescinded orders mean that figure is not a count of people still at large. Officers must establish which cases remain outstanding and what lawful action is required. Behind each file is a person whose circumstances must be determined. Behind the whole assignment is a public depending on government to know what it is doing.
Think about asking officers to find people across a country this large. Addresses change, records conflict, and an unanswered question can take days to resolve. An arrest requires people, planning, transportation, and somewhere appropriate to take the person afterward. Courts, local authorities, federal agencies, and foreign governments may all have a part in what happens next. We usually see a few seconds of an encounter on a phone screen, with little sense of the work surrounding it.
An undertaking this large will have bungles, errors, and mistakes. Human beings will misunderstand information, make wrong decisions, and fail to do something they should have done. Those failures matter, especially to the people affected. So do their causes, their frequency, and whether they are corrected. We owe the public enough context to distinguish an honest mistake from deliberate abuse and an isolated failure from a broken practice.
Agents who mistreat people must be held accountable. Unlawful actions and inadequate care cannot be dismissed because the assignment is difficult. Supporting ICE’s necessary work gives us every reason to insist that it be performed professionally. It also requires giving honest officers a fair hearing when something goes wrong. They deserve judgment based on evidence rather than an assumption of malicious intent.
On the need to find dangerous people and carry out lawful immigration decisions, the administration is right. That responsibility cannot wait until Americans agree about Donald Trump. Every person taken into custody deserves lawful treatment and human dignity. Every person in the community deserves a government willing to investigate a credible threat before someone is hurt. Both obligations belong in a functioning immigration system.
How much of the anger directed at ICE is really anger at Donald Trump himself? His arrogant approach, late-night social media posts, and inflammatory rhetoric may be driving hostility toward agents carrying out a necessary public service. The President makes their assignment harder when he presents enforcement as another personal or political victory. But disliking his persona does not resolve the security failures those officers are tasked with addressing. Americans should ask whether they are judging a particular enforcement action on its facts or reacting to the man whose administration ordered it.
Those officers deserve leadership that explains their work, respects the people affected, and helps them perform their duties safely. They deserve a President who supports their public service instead of using it to gloat over his political opponents. Mr. President, let ICE do its job without turning their work into a political victory.
Please understand, this is no condemnation of immigrants. We are talking about our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and families, people whose lives and hopes are woven into this country. They deserve protection from violent offenders, too. Nationality does not establish criminality, and a pending immigration case does not make someone a fugitive. Individual evidence and lawful authority must guide what happens next.
We can care about a family facing separation and an officer facing a dangerous arrest. We can demand a fair hearing and insist that a lawful decision eventually mean something. We can challenge misconduct while recognizing necessary public service. Those commitments require thought and compassion, especially when an individual case is painful. Our political loyalties should never relieve us of that responsibility.
Both sides of the political spectrum are dead-ass wrong for putting American enforcement officers in the middle of their ideological war. These officers have a real public-safety assignment and families waiting for them at home. Politicians who turn their work into a partisan trophy or make them targets of political hostility are making that assignment harder. Demand lawful conduct and hold misconduct accountable. Stop using the people doing the work as weapons against one another.
It is equally outrageous to inflame Americans, especially young people, and use their anger as an instrument of that fight. Young people have every right to care deeply, speak forcefully, and demand change. They deserve facts, historical understanding, and leaders who respect them enough to explain what is at stake. Encouraging confrontation while leaving them to face injury, arrest, or lasting consequences betrays that responsibility. Their convictions deserve better than becoming tools for someone else’s political ambition.
The politicians who rightly condemned Trump’s dangerous rhetoric surrounding January 6 must live by the standard they demanded of him. If they inflame anger over immigration enforcement and encourage intimidation or violence, they are doing the same shit they condemned. Each event has its own facts and responsibilities, but responsibility for what a leader encourages cannot depend on party affiliation. You cannot demand accountability for the anger your opponent encourages while refusing responsibility for the anger you encourage. Tell your own supporters when they have crossed the line.
Americans have every right to protest, criticize policy, record government conduct, and challenge unlawful action. Physical obstruction and threats can make an arrest more dangerous for everyone present. Officers forced to divide their attention between an arrest and a crowd closing around them have less room to work safely. The person being arrested and nearby bystanders can face greater danger as well. Responsible leaders should help prevent that collision.
It is a sad day in America when officers carrying out routine, lawful enforcement feel they must cover their faces to protect themselves and their families from harassment. Think about the climate that fear reflects. Officers must remain identifiable as law enforcement and accountable for their conduct. Their spouses and children should be able to live without becoming targets of political anger. Surely we can agree that an officer’s family should never have to pay for someone’s disagreement with the President.
Our larger national problem is the determination to use power against the other half of America. Both parties must answer for conduct that turns public institutions into instruments of retaliation or treats fellow citizens as enemies. We still have to live together after the election, after the protest, and after the argument. Our children will inherit whatever we leave standing. We should be asking whether our conduct gives them a stronger country or a deeper grievance.
Consider the money and energy consumed by this endless struggle. OpenSecrets’ estimate puts the 2024 federal election cycle at approximately $14.8 billion. Separately, CBO estimated that the five-week 2018–2019 shutdown reduced economic output by $11 billion across two quarters, including $3 billion permanently lost. Campaign spending and lost production are different measures, and they do not supply one total for political waste. They do show how much is at stake when the struggle for power consumes the work of governing.
Then we pay again as one administration dismantles what the last administration built. Agencies start over, businesses adjust again, and communities wait to learn which promises will survive the next election. Correcting failed policy is necessary. Treating everything associated with the opposition as something to destroy leaves the country trapped in permanent transition. Imagine directing more of that effort toward agreements strong enough to last.
Let us not be the generation that ended the American experiment. If both sides remain determined to force the other half into submission, we are choosing a struggle with no lasting victory. First newsflash: IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Millions of Americans will not surrender their convictions because their opponents win an election. We must learn to govern a country whose differences will remain.
That work begins with an honest conversation. Bring the officers doing the enforcement, immigrants and their families, victims’ families, local communities, and people with different political convictions to the table. Ask what each needs to be safe, what the evidence shows, and which proposals can actually work. Listen long enough to understand the answer. Enter the discussion prepared to change something you want in order to reach an agreement the country can sustain.
We should be able to build immigration policy around reliable identification, serious security screening, timely and fair hearings, humane treatment, and enforcement of lawful decisions. Congress must turn those commitments into workable law, provide the means to carry it out, and oversee the results. Compromise will require people across the political spectrum to give ground and accept that they cannot have everything their own way. Fairness means taking the safety, rights, dignity, and responsibilities of everyone affected seriously. The goal must be policy durable enough to outlast an election cycle and earn continued public trust.
So call your representatives and ask them what they are willing to agree on, who they are willing to work with, and what they will do to make that agreement last. Ask the same questions of the candidates seeking your vote. Have the conversation with a neighbor whose politics differ from yours, and begin with the problems you both want solved. Demand leaders who can explain a compromise and defend it to their own supporters. Give them reason to believe that building something lasting will earn more respect than provoking the next confrontation.
We are brothers, sisters, neighbors, and friends entrusted with the care of one country. Our disagreements are real, and so is our responsibility to one another. Let us come to the table ready to listen, negotiate in good faith, and build policies fair enough for everyone to live under. Let us leave the next generation a government capable of serving the whole nation. America must work for all of us, not just half.
What say you, America?
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