Any Day Of The Week, Well… Kinda, You Gotta Be Kidding Me
AuthenticHealers has received a preview of the 2026 International Society for the Promotion of Common Sense “What Are They Thinking?” Survey.
Because it measures Common Sense [Duh!] answer choices are relatively simple:
Sure. Any day of the week.
Well… kinda.
You gotta be kidding me!
No way in Hell!
Four questions. Four possible answers.
American surgeons are required to complete eight years of undergraduate and medical school studies, two or more years of internships and residencies, and (in some cases) extra training in sub-specialties. You fell climbing stairs, resulting in compound fractures of your left arm and leg. Will you allow a first semester pre-med undergraduate to do the surgery?
Your neighborhood IS plagued by a series of break-ins and the homeowners’ association is considering hiring a security company – the local high school football team. Will you vote Yes?
From initial enlistment to the highest possible rating for marksmanship, the Marine Corps demands recruits spend approximately twelve months WITH their M4 weapon as a part of their body; to achieve an “expert” rating requires “living with” their weapons and hundreds of rounds fired. That’s the minimum before moving on to more powerful, lethal and long-range weapons. As the Secretary of Defense, would you demand that marksmanship training be reduced to a casual stroll out to the range and (maybe) firing a dozen shots at a target 15 feet away.
You’re paying three small fortunes for your two kids at a school that promises they will be “fluent reading, speaking and thinking in Mandarin.” You’ve just discovered the school does not have any Mandarin classes, never did, never will. “It’s just an advertising ploy,” the registrar informs you. Will you write the $48,000 tuition check today?
The survey was just for fun, but we’ll come back to it.
During the first year of the second Trump administration, the annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement made ICE the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with $85 billion at its disposal including $30 billion allotted for hiring more ICE personnel, transportations costs and the maintenance of ICE facilities. This new budget is essentially triple that of recent years. For perspective, the current administration’s 2026 appropriations request for the entire Justice Department, including the FBI, is slightly higher than $35 billion. The American Immigration Council estimates the new funding could expand detention capacity to “at least 116,000 beds.”
ICE has significantly expanded hiring, promising up to $50,000 signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness, to double its workforce and meet the president’s benchmark of deporting one million people annually. ICE has also lowered the age limit of its recruits from 21 to 18 and waived the 37-year-old hiring cap; these age boundaries apply to most federal law enforcement agencies to ensure the agents’ physical fitness. Since Trump retook office, ICE has hired over 12,000 new agents and expanded its headcount to over 22,000.
Would-be agents attracted by promised bonuses and student loan forgiveness should note the cautions offered by Kristy Donahue (“The devil is in the Details: Homeland Security’s ICW Bonus Program,” January 20, 2026, Law4Small Business):
“If an agent leaves before that time is up - whether they quit because the job is too stressful, get fired for cause, or have to resign due to family medical issues -they don’t just stop receiving future installments. In many cases, they must repay the entire gross amount of the bonus received up to that point.
“Imagine receiving $10,000 upfront. After taxes, you might take home $7,000. You spend it on relocation costs. Six months later, you leave the job. The government will demand repayment of the full $10,000. Suddenly, you are $3,000 in debt for a job you no longer have.”
In a January 9 National Public Radio interview (“Homeland security expert talks about ICE’s truncated training after hiring blitz”) Obama administration assistant secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem noted:
“…to get all of those bodies into ICE, all of the right law enforcement folks into ICE, training has been reduced from about 16 weeks to about six, six and a half weeks. Yeah. And so you're starting from a pool of people who are not getting the training, don't have the time to have judgment, who are being launched in missions that are hard to describe with a political overlay….”
[The Customs and Border Patrol agents who fatally shot VA nurse Alex Pretti on January 24 in Minneapolis were employed by that agency in 2018 and 2014. The former Army National Guard member who served in Iraq and fatally shot and killed Renee Green in Minneapolis on January 7, joined ICE in 2015.]
Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025 – making it the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades, as the administration moves to detain a record number of people.
Some of those who died in detention had arrived in the US recently, seeking asylum. Others arrived years ago, some as young children. Some had been apprehended on criminal charges or had served time for convictions; others had been picked up in the administration’s indiscriminate ICE raids.
On February 11, the American Immigration Council (“6 deaths in ICE Custody and 2 Fatal Shootings: A Horrific Start to 2026”) reported:
“January 2026 saw a shocking number of deaths tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This includes fatalities inside immigration detention centers as well as deadly shootings involving ICE agents in public spaces. The deaths of eight people last month come on top of a record number of people dying in ICE custody in 2025 — though 2026 is already on track to surpass that record-high….”
One January case drew national attention after local authorities ruled it a homicide.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old father from Cuba died while detained at the Camp East Montana facility in El Paso, Texas. Although ICE is legally required to report deaths that occur in its custody, its public disclosures often come late and with little information. ICE stated Mr. Lunas Campos experienced a medical emergency after becoming “disruptive.” But the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide arising from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. DHS then attempted to blame his death on attempted suicide. According to reporting, a witness said Mr. Lunas Campos was handcuffed while at least five guards held him down and one guard squeezed his neck until he was unconscious.
Remember the old phrase “So bad it’s good” or was it “So good it’s bad”?
Try this from Newsweek (“ICE Agents Keep Accidentally Shooting Themselves,” February 18, 2026. Billal Rahman):
“Three federal immigration agents accidentally shot themselves in the leg during routing training exercises within two days last year, according to internal documents… A fourth incident involved an accidental taser discharge inside and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office….”
Consider (“‘Athletically allergic’ ICE recruits flunking en masse after lying on applications,” Raw Story, October 20, 2025, Matthew Chapman):
“‘More than a third [of recent ICE recruits] have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes,’ reported Nick Miroff [Staff writer for The Atlantic, who covers immigration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S.-Mexico border]. ‘It’s pathetic,' one career [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] official told me, adding that before now, a typical class of 40 recruits had only a couple of candidates fail, because the screening process was more rigorous.
“Now, because Trump officials have significantly eased the hiring process, many people who cannot do even light exercise are getting job offers that may have to be revoked or altered once they get to the training facility, said the report: ‘An email from ICE headquarters to the agency’s top officials on October 5 lamented that 'a considerable amount of ‘athletically allergic candidates' had been showing up to the academy; they had 'misrepresented' their physical condition on application forms.”
Feeling a little queasy about the hiring storm? How about this report from NBC News (“ICE error meant some recruits were sent into field offices without proper training, sources say.” January 14, 2026. Julia Ainsley):
“As Immigration and Customs Enforcement was racing to add 10,000 new officers to its force, an artificial intelligence error in how their applications were processed sent many new recruits into field offices without proper training, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the error.
“The AI tool used by ICE was tasked with looking for potential applicants with law enforcement experience to be placed into the agency’s ‘LEO program’ — short for law enforcement officer — for new recruits who are already law enforcement officers. It requires four weeks of online training.
“Applicants without law enforcement backgrounds are required to take an eight-week in-person course at ICE’s academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, which includes courses in immigration law and handling a gun, as well as physical fitness tests.
“‘They were using AI to scan résumés and found out a bunch of the people who were LEOs weren’t LEOs,’ one of the officials said.
“The AI tool was initially the mechanism used to categorize résumés, the officials said and flagged anyone with the word ‘officer’ on their résumés — for example, a ‘compliance officer’ or people who said they aspired to be ICE officers….”
In a gothic horror tale worthy of Mary Shelley, Julia Ainsely and Didi Martinez of NBC News (“Some new ICE recruits have shown up for training without full vetting,” October 22, 2025.) reported:
“Nearly half of new recruits who’ve arrived for training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center over the past three months were later sent home because they couldn’t pass the written exam, according to the data. The academic requirement includes an exam in which officers are allowed to consult their textbooks and notes at the end of a legal course on the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fourth Amendment, which outlines when officers can and can’t conduct searches and seizures.”
In other words, candidates failed an open book test!
FactChecl.org, “a Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center” at the University of Pennsylvania (“As ICE Arrests Increase, A Higher Portion Had No U.S. Criminal Record,” January 28, 2026, Robert Farley.) reported:
“…in the first three months of Trump’s presidency, about 22% of those arrested by ICE had no criminal record. By the three months ending in mid-October, that had jumped to approximately 40.5%.
“ICE’s public statistics also show that over time, a higher percentage of those being detained have no criminal convictions or pending charges.
“Consider, in February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s second term, about 14.7% of those detained by ICE had no criminal convictions or pending charges. By September, that percentage had shot up to 34.6%, and in January it was 42.7%.
“The number of immigrants detained by ICE who have no convictions or pending charges has soared, from 3,165 in February 2025 to 25,193 in January of this year.
“By comparison, just 869 of those detained by ICE in December 2024 (Biden’s last full month) had no convictions or pending charges. Then, 64% of those …” detained by ICE had criminal convictions. In January, 2026, it was roughly 29%, according to ICE data….”
In view of all we have presented above, we believe a former Chicago resident has some simple guidance:
“No one has said that the United States
should have open borders.
I think every country has a right to determine
who and how and when people enter…
But when people are living good lives,
and many of them for 10, 15, 20 years,
to treat them in a way that is extremely disrespectful,
to say the least — and there’s been some violence, unfortunately —
I think that the [American Catholic] bishops
have been very clear in what they said.
I think that I would just invite all people
in the United States to listen to them.”
Pope Leo XIV
On February 11, OSC News (previously Our Sunday Visitor) (“Catholic Advocates Speak Out As ICE Data Shows just 14% Arrested have Violent Criminal Records, Gina Christian) reported:
“Catholic immigration advocates are speaking out after an internal federal document obtained by CBS News showed most individuals arrested in Trump administration immigration crackdowns over the past year do not have violent criminal records.
“Almost 40% of those arrested lacked a criminal record altogether, and were accused of civil immigration offenses — such as being in the U.S. without legal authorization or overstaying a visa — that are usually adjudicated in civil court proceedings.
“Sixty percent of ICE arrestees had criminal charges or convictions, but the majority of those charges or convictions were not for violent crimes.
“The internal document, which aligns with data compiled by Syracuse University, contrasts sharply with Trump administration claims it is targeting the violent criminals in its sweeping immigration detention operations.
“‘Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold human dignity and due process,’ Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, told OSV News regarding the data.
“CBS News reported Feb. 9 that ‘less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.’”
We won’t speak for you, but – at our ages – we’re not about to have a college freshman premed student operate on our shoulder or prostate. Not any day of the week!
We won’t hire 18-year-old high school football players to provide security for our housing community.
You gotta be kidding if you think 47-day wonders (some of whom flunk post-course open book tests on the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fourth Amendment) can actually be professional and well-trained law enforcement officers.
And we won’t fall victims of ICE, Homeland Security or White House blah-blah-blah.
No way in hell!
On Friday, February 20 (after we had finished writing this piece), The New York Times (“A Fatal ICE Shooting Occurred in Texas Months Before Renee Good’s Killing, Pooja Salhotra and Edgar Sandoval.) reported the shooting death of Ruben Ray Martinez “by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer after he did not follow commands to exit his vehicle.”
The Times report followed Newsweek’s account (“ICE Knew of Increased Use of Force on US Citizens and Migrants, Emails Show,” February 18, 2026. Billal Rahman and Dan Gooding.)
“The messages, sent in February and March 2025, indicate that senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were informed of a rise in reported use-of-force incidents compared with the previous year.
“Emails also noted that use-of-force incidents in early March alone had quadrupled year-over-year. In the first two months of 2025, officers reported 67 incidents, nearly four times the 17 incidents reported during the same period in 2024.
“‘These records paint a deeply troubling picture of the violent methods used by ICE,’ Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight, a left-leaning organization that has backed lawsuits against the Trump administration, said in a press release Tuesday. ‘In just the first months of this administration, ICE’s own data shows a dramatic spike of nearly 400 percent in use-of-force incidents—with people hospitalized, bystanders swept up in operations, and even the death of a U.S. citizen.’
"Behind every statistic is a person, a family, and a community forced to live with the consequences of ICE’s aggressive and inhumane enforcement tactics.’
“In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek that America could be proud of the professionalism officers were bringing to the job of arresting and removing ‘dangerous criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, and gang members’ from communities across the country….
The November 12, 2025 “Special Pastoral Message”
on Immigration of the Catholic bishops
of the United States is available at
U.S. Bishops’ full statement on immigration and opposing mass deportation - America Magazine