Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York — America's first formerly undocumented congressman, in case you forgot — is now pushing to defund the Department of Homeland Security because he believes that breaking immigration law shouldn't count as, well, breaking the law. The man who personally benefited from lax enforcement now wants to make sure nobody enforces anything, ever.
You really can't make this stuff up, folks. A sitting United States congressman looked into a camera and essentially said "laws aren't crimes." Somewhere, a first-year law student just had an aneurysm.
Espaillat has been on a tear against ICE and DHS, arguing that the people sitting in federal detention centers are victims, not lawbreakers. "Why are we spending so much money on these detention centers that are holding people that never committed a crime?" Espaillat said, apparently forgetting that illegally entering a sovereign nation is, in fact, a crime. It's right there in the statute books, congressman. Title 8, United States Code. Look it up.
But Espaillat wasn't done. On May 27, 2026, he showed up at Newark's Delaney Hall detention center waving a court order and demanding entry like some kind of discount action hero. "I have a court order here that allows me to come in. I will go in because the Constitution protects me," he declared. He then took a look around and pronounced that the facility should be shut down entirely.
"Shut it down," he said. Subtle.
"They are not criminals," Espaillat insisted, referring to the detainees. "They have been ripped from their families and thrown in here." He described them as "working people" — which is a creative way to say "people who broke federal law to be here and then got caught." You know who else are working people? The ICE agents Espaillat wants to put out of a job.
Here's where it gets even more rich. Espaillat is one of 12 plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit trying to force DHS to let lawmakers waltz into any detention center — including privately operated ones — without advance notice. Because nothing says "I respect law and order" like suing the government to get unrestricted access to facilities holding people who violated federal law, so you can argue those people didn't violate federal law.
The circular logic is genuinely breathtaking. Step one: cross the border illegally. Step two: get detained for crossing the border illegally. Step three: have a congressman show up and say detention is unjust because crossing the border illegally isn't a crime. Step four: defund the agency that enforces the law you just said doesn't exist.
This is "Defund the Police" 2.0, except somehow dumber. At least the original defund crowd acknowledged that crimes were happening — they just didn't want cops responding to them. Espaillat has skipped straight past that and gone to "the crime isn't a crime, so the agency enforcing the non-crime shouldn't exist." It's like saying we should close all fire stations because fire isn't real.
And let's not tiptoe around the elephant in the room. Espaillat himself came to this country as an undocumented immigrant. He's America's first formerly illegal immigrant to serve in Congress. So when he says breaking immigration law isn't a crime, he's not making a legal argument. He's making a personal one. He's essentially saying "what I did wasn't wrong, and nobody else who does it should face consequences either."
That's not legislating. That's self-absolution with a congressional salary.
He also announced plans to introduce legislation that would let governors and state officials inspect federal detention centers. Because when you can't defund the agency outright, you flood it with bureaucratic harassment until it can't function. We've seen this playbook before.
Here's the bottom line: we have a congressman who broke immigration law, got away with it, climbed to power, and is now using that power to ensure the law he broke never gets enforced against anyone else. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the modern Democratic Party's position on border security, nothing will.