Morning all. I want to start today with a moment that I think was critical in our finding our inner courage to truly take on ICE. It was a House hearing with Sec. Noem late last year, before the escalation in Minnesota, where Democrats so powerfully summoned their outrage against ICE’s barbaric behavior that Noem fled the hearing. To me the highlight of that hearing were remarks from Rep. Delia Ramirez which you can find above. Let’s start our day with her, her outrage, her fight, her righteous call for justice and accountability……
Reining In ICE - End The Violence, End The Lawlessness, Narrow The Targets - So I’ve come up with a new way of describing our campaign to rein in ICE -
End The Violence
End The Lawlessness
Narrow The Targets
The first two are currently in most people’s language and arguments. The last one - Narrow The Targets - is how I’ve come to describe something we’ve been discussing here the last few days (here, here, here) - the need for ICE to stay focused on its stated mission of removing criminal migrants and leave the rest of us alone. For if ICE is only pursuing criminals then it doesn’t need all the extra money allocated in the big ugly bill; doesn’t need the extra detention centers; doesn’t need to descend on and terrorize entire cities. The only reason all this extra money is needed is if Trump-Vance-Miller-Noem are intending to deport tens of millions of immigrants already here, legal and undocumented, and keep their terror campaign on our streets for decades. We must not let this happen, and the best way to do so is to make a sustained case for the necessity of “narrowing the targets.”
For what is being built now is a paramilitary political police force loyal to Trump and not the Constitution. And once that gets built - with the extra man power, the experience gained through their attacks on our cities, with a new gulag archipelago - the targets will widen to include tens of millions of long-settled and lawful immigrants, journalists, political opponents of the regime, all of us. We know from history where this is all going which is why we must make a stand now before Miller transforms ICE into an American SS.
Here’s an a Google AI summary of Hitler’s SS:
The Schutzstaffel (SS), German for “Protection Squadron,” was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, serving as a primary instrument of terror, surveillance, and racial policy in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe (1925–1945). Led by Heinrich Himmler from 1929, the SS grew into a massive organization responsible for the Holocaust, running concentration/extermination camps, and operating the Waffen-SS.
As we reviewed yesterday, the American people are not just behind the new Congressional leadership’s 10 part agenda that ends the lawlessness and violence, they are also very much behind the notion of “narrowing the targets.”
Let’s review that data from Navigator again:
And here is similar data from YouGov. Focus should be on criminals, and everyone else should be left alone.
Again, simply, there isn’t support in the public for an agenda of “mass deportation.” Whether there ever was we can debate for many years to come. But the Trump-Vance-Miller terror campaign has turned the country against both the terror tactics and the goal of mass deportation.
So, yes, in my view, “narrowing the targets” becomes as important a goal for our current campaign to rein in ICE as “ending the violence” and “ending the lawlessness.”
Democrats are clearly seeing opportunity in this debate now. Here is a new ad from Janet Mills:
Here’s a new ad running in Maine from a Senate Dem affiliated SuperPAC (this is a very good ad):
Now, for a a bit of history. In its early days the modern “restrictionist” movement advocated for “mass deportation,” or the removal of all 11m+ undocumented immigrants in the US. In 2005 the Republican led House passed a bill to remove and felonize the 11m. A mass protest movement against this bill, called the Sensenbrenner Bill, spawned across the US. Some of you may remember it…….
I attended the rally on the Mall in the spring of 2006. It was enormous. In the 2006 mid-terms Hispanic voters broke sharply against the Republicans, wiping out the gains Bush made in his 2004 Presidential campaign. This surge of Hispanic support helped us flip chambers, and put us in control of Congress in 2007.
This failure, along with other set backs in the states in the years that followed, caused the restrictionist movement to back away from “mass deportation” and adopt a softer “self-deportation” approach, one that was adopted by Mitt Romney in his 2012 campaign for President. “Self-deportation” polled better than mass deportation, and would not be nearly as expensive as rounding up 10m+ people. For there has never been, in the 21 years of the modern fight over immigration, broad support for forced removal of the undocumented population in the US let alone tens of millions here legally (who the regime is currently targeting too).
Here are Exit Poll results from Trump’s two electoral victories:
2016 - “Illegal immigrants working in the US should be”:
70% - Offered legal status
25% - Deported to home country
2024 - “Most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. should be”
56% - Offered chance at legal status
40% - Deported
So while the perception of Biden’s mismanagement of immigration and the border led to an increase in those supporting deportation in 2024 it was still nowhere near a majority of the country. And it’s clear now that the Trump-Vance-Miller terror campaign has pushed people back to a far more sympathetic position towards immigrants here in the US, as the data we’ve been reviewing these last few weeks is far closer to the historic norm of 60%-70% of Americans supporting letting the undocumented immigrants stay and thus rejecting “mass deportation.”
I want to repeat this point for those new to this debate. In almost every poll taken in the last 21 years since the immigration debate began in earnest, support for letting the undocumented population stay and be offered legal status has been over 60%, and sometimes, depending on how the question was asked, broke 70%. The data has been remarkably consistent over two decades. A majority of Americans have never, and do not now, supported/support mass deportation of immigrants without criminal records.
Will Hispanic and immigrant voters break towards the Democrats in 2026, as they did in 2006, and help us flip both chambers? It is possible my friends, but as say here - only if we do the work and seize the opportunity in front of us.
Which is why as we get deeper into this debate in the coming weeks, we have to make very clear that we are not just standing against ICE, but also standing with immigrant communities across the US being terrorized by this out of control regime. We have to do what the courageous and brave people of Minnesota have done - they went to the streets, and risked their lives and liberties to protect their immigrant neighbors and families under siege.
When I left my old organization, NDN, to start Hopium in 2023, I did an interview with journalist Ron Brownstein in the Atlantic to talk about why (here’s a gift link, if interested). In that article the Atlantic included a photo of me and Senator Ted Kennedy from 2007. This photo is from an event that I and NDN hosted with Senate leadership in early 2007 to kick off a campaign that year to pass “comprehensive immigration reform”. Here’s the photo, via Getty:
In that room were the DC supporters of a bill that would have granted the 11m undocumented immigrants in the US a path to citizenship - Senators and House members, immigration groups, business groups and religious leaders including many leaders of the Catholic Church. There was much optimism that day that after the 2006 protests that swept the nation and our strong electoral mandate in the 2006 elections that we could pass this sweeping, necessary and humane legislation. Senator Kennedy was its primary and most spirited champion.
Tragically, that effort failed, and here we are, nineteen years later, with critical work still undone. But today we have the country behind us; the brave people of Minnesota have shown us the way; Trump-Vance-Miller have gone too far, way too far; and we just need to put our heads down now and do the work that needs to be done to rein in ICE, end the violence, end the lawlessness, narrow the targets and keep standing up for freedom and democracy, here and everywhere, every day, 24/7/365……..
Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep contacting your Congressional Reps and demand they rein in ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big week ahead!
Winning The Midterms - Support Our Candidates
Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $104,000 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10). Friends, we’ve hit $100,000 - thank you all!
Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $27,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and learn more. Amazing start everyone!
Winning Ohio - $49,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who does a great overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year. Note a generous donor has sent $21,000 worth of Hopium-infused contributions directly to the candidates which are not included in our on-line goal tracker.
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $73,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper and a new, terrific one with NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $120,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $351,100 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties
Why We Must Invest Early, Now, And Not Wait - In three new essays (here, here, here) I discuss how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up, be loud, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land.
The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.
Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:
Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his new threats to seize Greenland and his new, dangerous European tariffs;
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse the cuts to the wealthy and corporations
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes.
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; support and co-sponsor the Stand Up For Science/Rep. Haley Stevens effort to remove Robert Kennedy from HHS.
Keep working hard all. The momentum is with us, and we need to keep fighting as hard as we can - Simon
