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CBP Chief Brags They’re “Experts” in Detaining Small Children
New Republic • Jan 23, 2026

CBP Chief Brags They’re “Experts” in Detaining Small Children

A top Homeland Security official is insisting that the American public trust the Trump administration with their children—even as reports circulate that ICE and Customs and Border Protection have detained multiple children in Minnesota.Greg Bovino, a senior tactical commander for the U.S. Border Patrol, practically boasted about his agency’s ability to deal with children during a press conference Friday on the department’s Minneapolis operations, attempting to brush reports of child detentions under the rug by sharing anecdotes about officers playing soccer with locked-up kids.“Here in the U.S. Border Patrol, I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children,” Bovino said. “Not because we want to be, but because we have to be.”Later in the press conference, while crowing that both CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “probably the most experienced [law enforcement agencies] anywhere in the United States” when dealing with children, the Border Patrol chief suggested that circumstances are not so dire for children in detention centers.“I know that in my particular Border Patrol sector—that saw thousands of individuals coming across the border during that last administration, including hundreds of children—I remember our agents in the back parking lot playing soccer matches with those children.“I would challenge any law enforcement agency to show me the fantastic care that ICE and U.S. Border Patrol provide children,” he added, before warning people to not commit crimes lest they have to deal with his agency.Bovino further compared the family separations to those experienced by U.S. citizens when parents are arrested by local law enforcement—though the difference there is that police are constitutionally required to have probable cause that an individual committed a crime before they arrest them. Reports emerged Thursday that ICE had also detained at least four Minnesota children, one of whom was a 5-year-old preschooler, Liam Ramos, who was abducted by masked agents in his driveway shortly after he and his father arrived home. ICE also detained a 2-year-old at a traffic stop in Minneapolis.Just hours after Bovino recounted his dystopian, rather than feel-good, story about detained children, another report emerged that immigration agents had grabbed a child. ICE detained a family of three, including a 7-year-old girl, outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, last week. The girl’s parents had been rushing her to emergency medical care after she had a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop.ICE’s violent and relatively untrained militias, meanwhile, have been expressly permitted to operate with impunity by the Trump administration, allowing them to harass, batter, and kill their neighbors with little recourse.It has become glaringly obvious over the course of the last year (or even just this last week) that the Trump administration’s pledge to focus on deporting violent criminals was little more than centrist lip service. In reality, immigration agents have arrested practically anybody in order to meet Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s quota of 3,000 or more arrests per day.

CDC Vaccines Chief Says Every Single Vaccine Should Be Optional
New Republic • Jan 23, 2026

CDC Vaccines Chief Says Every Single Vaccine Should Be Optional

The Trump-appointed head of the federal panel that recommends vaccines is saying that polio and measles vaccines—and perhaps every vaccine—should be optional. Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who heads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on a podcast Thursday that possibly every shot should be optional, saying that while he had “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed from polio, a person’s right to refuse a vaccine supersedes all medical concerns. “If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” Milhoan said. “Without consent, it is medical battery.”Milhoan made the comments in an episode of Why Should I Trust You? released Thursday, claiming that polio and measles are not the threats they used to be because of medical advances and sanitation, not vaccination. His comments are in line with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views and his recent decision to reduce the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11.Kennedy’s decision, however, is not being followed by leading medical organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every single state plus the District of Columbia still requires most, if not all 17 vaccinations, for an individual to attend public schools. But the measles and polio vaccines have prevented countless deaths and injuries in the United States and worldwide for the past several decades, and changing that could lead to more dangerous and deadly outbreaks. Medical experts told The New York Times that Milhoan’s decision was completely unfounded and dangerous.“These vaccines protect children and save lives,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”

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