The story making the rounds on liberal social media and in the mainstream media is that ICE killed a blind refugee. They left him five miles from his home in Buffalo, he died, and ICE is to blame for being Nazis who leave blind people to freeze to death without notifying their families. By extrapolation, the argument goes, the United States should have open borders and cease all ICE deportations of illegal aliens.

One of the details repeated over and over is that he used a curtain rod as a walking stick, but ICE arrested him because they said it was a weapon. This is particularly odd since ICE conducts immigration enforcement and would have no reason to stop and arrest someone simply for walking with a stick. In upstate New York, it is not uncommon to see people walking with a stick.

Here is what actually happened. The facts vary dramatically from the spin, and ICE did nothing wrong. In fact, ICE was not even involved in the arrest. The agency involved was Customs and Border Protection, which handles enforcement near the border. Because Buffalo is a border city, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office contacted Border Patrol.

A 56-year-old nearly blind Rohingya refugee, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, came to the U.S. on December 24, 2024, but spent the past year in the Erie County Holding Center following his February 15, 2025, arrest on charges of assault, trespassing, and criminal possession of a weapon. He had been in the United States for exactly 53 days when he was arrested.

The trespassing charge stemmed from an incident in Buffalo’s Riverside neighborhood. A female homeowner was letting her dog out when she discovered a stranger, Shah Alam, standing on her porch. He was holding a long metal curtain rod. Feeling threatened by both his presence and the object in his hand, she called the police. Apparently, he was able to see well enough to trespass on someone else’s property and to threaten the homeowner with his walking stick.

The assault and weapon charges involved the responding Buffalo Police officers. According to the police report and statements from the Erie County District Attorney, when officers arrived and ordered Shah Alam to drop the rod, he did not comply. His family later claimed this was due to his poor eyesight and limited English. However, the family’s statement is irrelevant because they were not present during the incident.

Police stated that during the encounter, Shah Alam became “combative.” According to the report, he allegedly bit one of the officers during the struggle. There are roughly 135 countries where English is not an official language, yet their citizens are not walking around biting one another. It is reasonable to conclude that the alleged biting had nothing to do with his lack of English fluency.

Two officers sustained minor injuries. The criminal possession of a weapon charge was based on the curtain rod, which police classified as a dangerous instrument during the altercation. According to his attorney, officers tasered and beat him after he failed to drop the rod. This is understandable given that he not only refused to comply but also became combative.

Following his arrest, Buffalo police located his refugee identification documents and notified federal authorities. ICE issued a detainer, meaning that once his local criminal case was resolved, he would be transferred to federal custody.

In February 2026, after nearly a year in jail, the Erie County District Attorney offered a reduced plea agreement. Shah Alam pleaded guilty to Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Fourth Degree and Criminal Trespass in the Third Degree, both misdemeanors. The original felony assault charges were reduced in what prosecutors described as an interest-of-justice resolution, taking into account his lack of criminal history and medical condition.

On February 19, 2026, after his family posted bond and he entered the plea, he was released from county custody and transferred to U.S. Border Patrol pursuant to the federal detainer. Border Patrol took custody of him.

After approximately four hours, Border Patrol determined he was a lawful refugee and not subject to removal. Many media accounts stress that CBP did not notify his family or attorney when he was released. There is no legal requirement for them to do so, and there is no indication that he was denied the opportunity to call home.

Agents provided what was described as a courtesy ride and dropped him at a Tim Hortons on Niagara Street, roughly five miles from his home. They were not required to provide transportation at all. It is unclear whether he requested that location or whether agents chose it. Under either circumstance, he could have called home from Tim Hortons.

Some claim he died because he could not get home from Tim Hortons. However, the original arrest location on February 15, 2025, was Niagara Street near the intersection with Grace Street in the Riverside neighborhood of Buffalo. His home was in the Broadway–Fillmore neighborhood on Buffalo’s East Side.

By road, the distance between Niagara Street near Grace Street and the Broadway–Fillmore area is approximately 6 to 7 miles, depending on the route. In a straight line, it is closer to about 4.5 to 5 miles, but driving requires crossing much of the city via major east–west corridors. He was able to travel roughly that distance at the time of his original arrest. So, it is not unreasonable to believe he could have walked five miles on the day of his release.

The Erie County Medical Examiner ruled that his death was health-related in nature, ruling out homicide or death by exposure, including hypothermia.

No part of this story implicates ICE in his death. Nor does it appear that CBP or the Buffalo Police Department broke the law or violated Shah Alam’s rights.

The post Media Lies: ICE Not Responsible for Death of Blind Refugee appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Hillary Clinton released her opening statement to the House Oversight Committee ahead of her deposition on Jeffrey Epstein.

The Clintons caved to House Oversight Chairman James Comer and agreed to testify this month in the Committee’s Epstein investigation.

Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify before the Oversight Committee after Chairman James Comer moved forward in holding them in criminal contempt of Congress.

Hillary Clinton will testify before the Committee on Thursday and Bill Clinton will testify on Friday.

The Clintons are testifying remotely from an office in their hometown of Chappaqua, New York.

In her opening statement, Hillary Clinton said she does not recall encountering Epstein.

Here is my opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. pic.twitter.com/NZSF2epcI5

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 26, 2026

Here is the first photo of Hillary Clinton during her deposition:

BREAKING: The first image of Hillary Clinton testifying under oath about Jeffery Epstein to the Republican Oversight Committee.

This is the first time Hillary has had to answer real questions about Epstein. Clinton does not look happy.

Photo provided by Rep. Lauren Boebert. pic.twitter.com/mPtUyA4u5i

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 26, 2026

DEVELOPING…

The post JUST IN: Hillary Clinton Releases Her Opening Statement to House Oversight Committee Ahead of Epstein Deposition (PHOTO OF HILLARY) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Just like in the Minnesota fraud case, where there are clearly billions of dollars in fraud, but Democrats are claiming political or racist motivations for the investigation, the left is now suggesting political motives behind the FBI raid of the Los Angeles school district and its superintendent’s home.

Alberto Carvalho has been an outspoken critic of President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. He appeared alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom at a 2025 bill signing aimed at shielding schools from ICE agents and publicly condemned enforcement actions targeting students. His conflict with the federal government over immigration enforcement has been public and escalating. In several high-profile incidents over the last year, LAUSD staff physically blocked federal agents from entering schools.

However, he has a history of fraud investigations from his previous job, and the current investigation includes substantial evidence contained in public filings tied to a startup AI company.

FBI agents executed court-authorized search warrants on Wednesday, February 25, 2026, at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District in downtown Los Angeles and at the home of Superintendent Alberto Carvalho in the San Pedro neighborhood. A third location in Southwest Ranches, Florida, near Miami, where Carvalho previously worked, was also searched.

Federal authorities carried out the raid as part of a criminal investigation connected to AllHere, a failed AI startup that developed the district’s chatbot, “Ed.” Although officials have not publicly detailed the full scope of the probe, sources told the Los Angeles Times that the investigation involves Carvalho and centers on financial matters. The Florida property searched is linked through public records to Debra Kerr, a consultant who worked with AllHere and has longstanding ties to Carvalho from his time in Miami.

Carvalho has led LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district, since 2022, and previously served as Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ superintendent for nearly 14 years.

In 2020, while serving as superintendent in Miami-Dade, a nonprofit he founded and chaired, the Foundation for New Education Initiatives, solicited a $1.57 million donation from education technology company K12. The donation was sought while the district was considering a major contract with K12 for an online learning platform.

A 2021 investigation by the Miami-Dade Inspector General found no actual violations of ethics policies but concluded that the donation created an appearance of impropriety. The funds were ultimately distributed to teachers in the form of $100 gift cards.

In Los Angeles, LAUSD awarded a $6 million contract to AllHere to develop the AI chatbot “Ed,” ultimately spending about $3 million before the project was withdrawn. The company later filed for bankruptcy, and its founder, Joanna Smith-Griffin, was charged in 2024 with securities fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The partnership drew federal scrutiny, including concerns about student privacy.

Carvalho initially praised the chatbot as revolutionary but later described the company’s alleged misconduct as a “disturbing and disappointing house of cards.” He denied personal involvement in selecting AllHere and said he would form a task force to review the failed project, though no such task force was publicly established.

One week before the raid, the Department of Justice moved to join a federal lawsuit against LAUSD, alleging that the district’s decades-old desegregation program discriminates against white students.

The lawsuit, originally filed in January 2026 by the 1776 Project Foundation, challenges the district’s PHBAO program, which designates schools as “Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian or Other Non-Anglo” if 70 percent or more of the resident student population falls into those categories.

According to the complaint, PHBAO schools receive substantially more funding. They are capped at a maximum of 25 students per class, while non-PHBAO schools can have class sizes as large as 34.5 students. Because of these smaller class-size requirements, PHBAO schools are allocated more budgeted positions, including additional teachers, assistant principals, and counselors.

The Department of Justice argues that the program disadvantages approximately 100 non-PHBAO schools with higher white student populations and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by using race as a primary factor in funding and staffing decisions.

On February 19, 2026, Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon filed a motion to intervene. “Treating Americans equally is not a suggestion—it is a core constitutional guarantee,” Bondi said. “The era of race-based educational spoils systems has long since passed.”

The FBI has not disclosed specific allegations, and affidavits related to the search warrants remain sealed. LAUSD issued a statement confirming it is aware of the investigation and is cooperating with federal authorities, but has provided no additional details. The Board of Education scheduled a closed-session meeting to discuss the superintendent’s employment. No charges against Carvalho have been announced.

The post FBI Raid of Los Angeles School District – Allegations of Fraud and Separate Lawsuit Discriminating Against Whites appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Democrats and allied progressive groups staged a “State of the Swamp” event in Washington, D.C., as a theatrical counter‑program to President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The gathering featured the Portland Frog Brigade, whose members packed the National Press Club in inflatable frog costumes as organizers framed the night as “joyful, radical, peaceful resistance” to the Trump agenda.

Video from the event shows a man identified as performance artist Louis Robert Potylo taking the stage in a full giraffe suit and shouting to the crowd about his history of clashes with immigration authorities. In one clip that quickly spread online, liberal commentator JoJoFromJerz told the audience she had just walked backstage to find “a suitcase full of dildos,” joking on the microphone about wondering what kind of party she had entered.
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Conservative outlets seized on those images, describing the scene of inflatable frogs, a costumed giraffe, and the explicit backstage dildo claim as proof that Democrats had turned their State of the Union rebuttal into a clown show.

Separately, Democrats hosted another alternative State of the Union event where Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man at the center of a high‑profile deportation and detention case, was introduced on stage as an honored guest.

At that second event, BlazeTV host and conservative commentator Sara Gonzales was escorted out by security after she shouted that MSNBC anchor Joy Reid was “a loser” while Reid was speaking, an exchange Gonzales later posted about on social media.

Also during the Democrats’ tiny “People’s State of The Union” counter event, while Democrat Senator Chris Murphy was giving a theatrical speech about immigrants, a Trump supporter CRASHED his speech by taking the stage and shouting “GO TRUMP, GO TRUMP” and telling Murphy to his face, “Hey, Murphy, you’re a scumbag.”

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