Whether you’re pro- or anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both sides should be able to agree that ICE has its fair share of criticisms.
Some of those criticisms are in good faith and aimed at improving the group’s operations.
Other criticisms? They are apparently off-base enough that ICE itself has to respond with a biting rhetoric.
An example of that latter type of criticism was recently proffered by Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter, Josh Gerstein.
Gerstein took to social media and posted: “At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws.”
The X post was a response to the growing furor over the Minnesota fraud scandal, which has utterly engulfed the discourse surrounding the Gopher State.
Internet sleuth Nick Shirley sparked a firestorm of controversy over one such example of the fraud, which involved day care centers in the state’s Somali communities collecting millions of dollars from Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded Child Care Assistance Program, despite appearing to not actually be taking care of children and/or providing any services.
Shirley’s investigation involved him physically going to many of these allegedly fraudulent day cares, including one whose sign identified itself as the Quality “Learing” Center.
Given that context, it’s clear what Gerstein was implying: Efforts to hold immigrants accountable can — and likely will — lead to violence.
And ICE wasn’t having any of it:
You would think a “Senior Legal Affairs Reporter” for POLITICO would know better than to tweet something inciting violence against federal agents. https://t.co/u8V0xVJjFY
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) December 30, 2025
“You would think a ‘Senior Legal Affairs Reporter’ for POLITICO would know better than to tweet something inciting violence against federal agents,” the ICE X account fired back at Gerstein.
While the Politico reporter never explicitly mentioned ICE, it’s clear that immigration enforcement officials felt that Gerstein’s rhetoric was part of a larger campaign demonizing anyone who would dare to get to the bottom of illegal immigration shenanigans.
But even if he wasn’t referring to ICE, Gerstein’s post had one major issue: He was completely mischaracterizing how “stand your ground” laws operate.
As the Community Note under Gerstein’s post explained, “Stand-your-ground laws remove the duty to retreat from a threat when a person is in a place they have a legal right to be.
“Knocking on the door of a supposedly public business does not constitute a threat, so stand-your-ground could not be invoked as a defense.”
Others pointed out that Minnesota is not a “stand your ground” state. It’s a “duty to retreat” state, meaning the threatened person has to first try to escape the threat before being entitled to use deadly force.
Interestingly enough, Gerstein’s follow-up to his original post seemed to imply the Politico reporter was aware of how many anti-ICE individuals might construe it:
To observe that something is likely to happen or there’s a serious risk of it happening is not to advocate for it happening
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) December 30, 2025
“To observe that something is likely to happen or there’s a serious risk of it happening is not to advocate for it happening,” Gerstein posted.
A cursory glance at the responses under that post showed that swathes of readers weren’t buying the sudden backtrack.
And clearly, neither did ICE.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
