Outside the Beltway

Worst of the Worst Update

Maybe a trip to Doral wasn't a great idea?

Steven L. Taylor · Saturday, June 20, 2026 · 4 comments

Via NBC News: He took his wife, a Trump fan, to the president’s hotel in Doral. Instead he was detained by ICE.

To understand the gravity of it all, I give you this paragraph:

“Bryan had no criminal record whatsoever; he hadn’t committed any crime. He had a pending legal proceeding that, under any previous administration, would not have been an issue,” Rengifo added. “But under this administration, all these small details — the tattoo, the grinder, the BB gun — combined to create a situation that escalated significantly.”

The short version of this story is that Bryan José Rojas Galofre is a Venezuelan migrant seeking asylum due to conditions in his home country. He had gone through the proper process, as I understand it. His wife and children are American citizens. He was employed prior to all of this.

We can have a debate (indeed, we should have a real debate) over how to handle refugees and asylum seekers. I understand and acknowledge that a system wherein hundreds of thousands, if not millions, can show up, claim asylum, and then live in the US for years while awaiting their hearings is sub-optimal. I also think that the evidence clearly indicates that most such people assimilate, get jobs, and contribute to the broader economy in a positive way.

I will admit that my policy views on this are on the liberal side of the immigration debate (and have been for decades, to be honest). While I have changed my mind on a lot of issues over the years, my basic views on this have been fairly stable. I think that the national attitude on this topic has shifted rightward relative to me, and this is especially true of most Republicans. I actually think my general position had a home in the GOP as recently as the Bush administration (more or less).

I will go further to say that the US needs workers, taxpayers, and consumers. I also think that reasonable free movement of people is a morally defensible position. Yes, you need some sort of border controls and the ability to oust problematic persons, but those are bureaucratic issues that can be augmented beyond our current system. The notion that having some neighborhoods that include ethnic enclaves, or the appearance of people who don’t look like they came from northern Europe, is some terrible price to pay is, in my view, ludicrous. And all the evidence shows that intergenerational assimilation is real.

I say all of that for context and background before I simply say this: Yes, deport violent criminals. And yes, that’s where the resources need to go. But it is grossly inhumane to detain a man for months, and to cause his family’s finances to be wrecked over tattoos, an airsoft pistol, and a marijuana grinder. And, of course, his brown skin.

None of this kind of thing is making the American people safer, nor is it an efficacious deployment of resources.

Further, it should be a sign to Latino voters that Trump does not care about them and that when he talks about immigrants, he means all of them, not just the “bad” ones. Further, his administration is clearly seeking to promote white supremacy.

As such, good luck with this:

Rojas, for his part, has a message for the president.

“I would tell Mr. President — and the United States government — to show a little compassion toward the people who truly are doing things right in this country. I arrived with a desire to work; I arrived with a desire to do things the right way,” Rojas said.

Trump simply does not care, and there has been nothing the man has done that suggests to me he has a compassionate bone in his body.