2028 Dem hopefuls torched over webinars teaching illegal immigrants how to 'defy' ICE
This story raises questions about governance, accountability, and American values.
Markwayne Mullin isn't wrong to be annoyed here, though "torched" might be doing some heavy lifting for what actually happened. AOC and Gavin Newsom putting together webinars that walk illegal immigrants through how to handle an ICE encounter, what to say, what not to say, when to stay silent, is the kind of thing that used to be called obstruction and is now called "know your rights" programming. Call it what you want.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Markwayne Mullin blasts Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gavin Newsom for hosting webinars and sharing resources he says help illegal immigrants defy ICE.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Markwayne Mullin isn't wrong to be annoyed here, though "torched" might be doing some heavy lifting for what actually happened. AOC and Gavin Newsom putting together webinars that walk illegal immigrants through how to handle an ICE encounter, what to say, what not to say, when to stay silent, is the kind of thing that used to be called obstruction and is now called "know your rights" programming. Call it what you want. The practical effect is the same: two prominent Democrats with national ambitions are actively coaching people who are in the country illegally on how to make federal enforcement harder.
The defenders will say everyone has rights regardless of immigration status, and that's true as far as it goes. But there's a difference between informing someone of their rights and running a strategic session on evading agents doing their jobs. If a sitting governor of the largest state in the country is functionally training people to slow down ICE operations, that's not a civics lesson. That's policy by workaround, because the actual immigration fight in Congress is too hard, too unpopular, or too politically inconvenient to win straight up.
What's telling is the audience these two are playing to. Newsom wants 2028 badly enough that he's willing to turn California into a testing ground for how far a Democrat can push sanctuary politics without losing the center entirely. AOC doesn't have that problem, she's never pretended to want the center. But put them together and you get a preview of what a Democratic primary looks like: contestants racing each other toward whoever can make immigration enforcement look most like an occupying army.
Mullin's criticism lands because it's specific, not because it's clever. These aren't abstract lectures about compassion. They're webinars, with slides, presumably, teaching tactics. Whether voters think that's principled resistance or an end run around the law is going to be a bigger 2028 fight than either side wants to admit right now.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.