BY MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS DECEMBER 03 2025
New York City devolved into a scene of anarchy and chaos as protestors took to the streets to obstruct justice. Routine Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations are never routine when occurring in a leftist city, especially on a holiday weekend when protestors are already riled up and ready to ruin everyone else’s days off to ensure that their preferred causes are front of mind. Those who didn’t harass shoppers for their Black Friday purchases without paying deference to Gaza were chanting derogatory epithets to the NYPD. Meanwhile, halfway across the country, a massive fraud scheme was unraveling that cost the taxpayer over a billion dollars and was aided and abetted by elected officials. Both of these stories emphasized the same point: America has an immigration problem.
The confrontation in NYC was captured in viral videos. Many videos showed police officers detaining people, spraying pepper spray, and moving aside obstructions. Being an officer in that scenario is incredibly difficult. Protestors are masked and combative, outnumbering the officers at least ten to one. They are clearly preventing law enforcement from doing its job, a textbook definition of obstruction of justice. Yet the condemnation and ire over what transpired was directed at the cops, not the protestors.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team issued a statement calling the raids “cruel and inhumane,” vowing to uphold the city’s sanctuary laws and prioritize “deescalation rather than unnecessary force.” City Councilmember Shahana Hanif accused the NYPD of acting as “handmaidens to these ICE terrorists,” while Comptroller Brad Lander decried footage of officers clearing paths for federal vehicles. The New York Immigration Coalition demanded the immediate release of those detained, framing the protest as a defense of New York City’s “three million immigrants [who] are central to our city’s strength.”
This wasn’t an isolated flare-up. Just weeks earlier, a similar raid on Canal Street drew hundreds in opposition, underscoring the deepening rift between urban liberals and federal enforcers. Critics, including Department of Homeland Security officials, blasted the blockade as “violent rioting” organized via social media, endangering agents amid a surge in assaults on ICE personnel. When people wonder why ICE agents are masked, it’s because they would be subject to physical harm and lawfare by a future Democrat administration.
In Minnesota, a bombshell New York Times investigation, building on a November exposé by conservative journalist Christopher Rufo and reporter Ryan Thorpe in City Journal, revealed a sprawling web of fraud siphoning billions from state social services, much of it allegedly funneled back to Somalia, including to the al-Shabaab terrorist group. Prosecutors, led by U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson, described a “constellation of schemes” where Somali-owned companies billed for phantom meals, autism therapies, and housing services, pocketing funds for luxury cars, overseas trips, and remittances home.
The Times report detailed how, under Gov. Tim Walz’s watch, fraud exploded in programs like Feeding Our Future, a COVID-era child nutrition initiative that ballooned from a $2.6 million budget to $250 million in payouts, with more than 70 defendants charged in the largest such scam in the nation. Autism services, exploding from 41 to 328 providers (many Somali-linked), saw fake diagnoses and kickbacks to parents. Federal sources told Rufo and Thorpe that stolen millions, remitted via informal networks, enriched al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliate. President Donald Trump seized on the revelations last week, revoking Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of Somalis and blasting the fraud on social media as emblematic of “welfare pirates” abusing American generosity.
When trying to defend rampant and unchecked immigration into the country, the common refrain is that “America was founded by immigrants and built by immigrants.” This is simply not true. America was not founded by immigrants. Settlers moved to America and colonized it. After hundreds of years, men born in America birthed the nation. Of the seven accredited Founding Fathers, only one was born outside this country. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, eight were born outside the colonies. Settlers are not immigrants.
Then there are the immigrants of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which are incomparable to today’s migrants. First, let’s not pretend they were welcomed with open arms. They were as maligned and unwelcome as anyone who comes into an existing community with their own lifestyle and tradition. Even so, they appreciated and loved America for its promise of a future that was impossible in their nation of origin. Unlike today, however, they received no welfare and no handouts. They had to learn the language and survive on their own. They were all the more grateful for it.
Today, many do not assimilate, learn the language, or exist without some type of government subsidy, and they despise America. The poster child for this is Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has prospered in the United States in a way that someone like her couldn’t dream of in Somalia, yet she openly spits on our founding documents and is disgusted by the United States.
These are the challenges of the immigration system, and one that only became well known because President Trump solved the most glaring challenge, the open Southern border. Now that that’s no longer a problem (because Trump did the unthinkable and actually enforced the law), attention can be drawn to the massive problems that are occurring internally.
From the beginning, Trump and Border Czar Tom Homan have said that their first priority is deporting the illegals who have committed crimes while here. In New York City, that includes 7,169 who are currently taking up space in jails, according to Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. The issue goes far deeper than that. Up to half a million illegals are currently living in NYC. In a city plagued by too much demand for not enough supply, personified by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s “affordability crisis” campaign, fighting so hard to ensure that the demand for shelter and resources stays as high as possible is logic only a leftist understands. This doesn’t even include the three million legal immigrants in New York City who should all be subject to anti-American and pro-jihadi bias and ideology. Recent events around legal migrants like Mahmoud Khalil have taught us that.
This brings us to the Somali problem, another that would have been ignored in favor of focusing on the open Southern border. Aside from the fraud, which should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, it is clear that many of these refugees from the third world are not grateful to be in America and use this opportunity to improve their adopted country. Rather, they brought their failing ideology with them. This is why Trump is 100 percent correct in putting a permanent ban on migration from the third world. Not only does it not help America, it actually hurts those nations because the ones who make their way here should put that effort and energy into improving their homes.
Massive reforms are needed, and they are needed now. There is obviously no political will from the Left to change, so this must be done by the Executive Branch. Trump has just over three years left in his term. We must assume that this will be the last shot for a while to make the structural changes needed to ensure American prosperity for the next generation.
