WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Under the Radar - Episode 28

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

This week on “Under the Radar,” hear about a court case challenging the potentially circular authority of ICE, a national state of emergency in dealing with Cuba, a bill aiming to prevent NGOs from funding the Taliban, and more.

This is Under the Radar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now, here's your host, Luke Miller. This week on Under the Radar, hear about a court case challenging the potentially circular authority of ICE, a national state of emergency in dealing with Cuba, a bill aiming to prevent NGOs from funding the Taliban, and more. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and on this show, we'll cover the news you didn't catch this week from the mainstream media. While they're covering the president's latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you. to under the radar. The first piece of news I have for you this week is a court case that is quickly

making its way up the ranks entitled Adrian Conejo Arias and LCR, who is his son, versus Christy Noem, who is the Secretary of Homeland Security. Now, there is a lot to get into with this court case. I could probably spend the whole show talking about just this case. I won't, especially since it is a district court case at this moment, but it is on a fast track to the Supreme Court, so it's going to be there very soon. And there's a couple things in particular that make this case really, really interesting. The first of which is the ramifications that it's going to have for ICE, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Because the case challenges what are called administrative warrants, which is how ICE has any authority to do anything. The second reason that this case

is particularly interesting is because of the way the district court judge went about writing this decision, which is comical to say the least. I'm going to get into the decision and some of the wording that he used and it's really just remarkable. But first, to give some of the background of the case, there's his father and son, Adrian Conejo Arias, and Lerias, and Lerner. Liam Conejo Ramos, who's his son, five years old. They live in Minnesota in the Minneapolis area in a town called Columbia Heights, Minnesota. On January 20th, 2026, immigration agents detained Liam and his father outside their home. The two of them were then transported more than 1,300 miles to the Dilley Immigration Detention Facility in Texas, where they were held for one

week. The family entered the United States in December, 24, at the Texas border to seek asylum. And there's a lot of disputing of the facts going on here. about exactly how they entered, how they've been complying, the way the asylum rules work. As of right now, the remain in Mexico policy is not in place. So when people come to seek asylum in the United States, they are allowed into the United States and given a court date, which they may or may not show up for. Now, the lawyers for the Arias family are saying that they have been complying with the court proceedings.

The Trump administration is claiming that they have extended their stay beyond the deadline for asylum. And I'm not sure whether that's because they have not been showing up. to court proceedings or whether the court cases have gone too slow to the point where the asylum deadline ended for them. In that case, it would be out of their control. But in my independent analysis looking at this, they were issued these asylum court case dates in Texas. They then went to a sanctuary city around Minneapolis, Minnesota. So they weren't in Texas for these cases to really happen. More than that, they moved 1,300 miles away from Texas to a sanctuary city where they thought that the laws would be more

favorable to them. Either way, the federal government issued an administrative warrant. allowing them to be taken to this ICE facility in Texas. Either way, the federal government issued an administrative warrant, allowing ICE to take this family and deport them, take them to an ICE facility down in Texas, while their case is heard in immigration courts to await potential deportation. So just getting the fact straight, they have not yet been deported. They were taken from their home in Minnesota to an immigration facility in Texas,

and they were there for one week before this case made it to a district court, and this district court judge ruled that they had to be released. Now, but the administrative warrant is what allowed them to be detained. And an administrative warrant is one that can be issued by somebody within the executive branch, within the administration, so within ICE, basically. And that's a major part of the controversy surrounding this case is, well, an administrative warrant does not have to be signed by a judge. And we'll break that down and the legality of that down shortly.

But that is what an administrative warrant is. It's issued from within the administration itself. It is not issued from a judge. It does not have to be signed by a judge. And as of right now, these administrative warrants are fully legal under the Fourth Amendment. And that is something that is challenged by this case. And as we get into the decision from this district court judge, we'll look at that. But I also want to note, just as I read a couple of pieces from this, the tone and the language used by this judge, it's quite antagonistic.

It's a little bit aggressive. And, I mean, I can't really think of a better word than sassy to actually describe a lot of these phrases used by the judge. Getting into it, he starts his decision by saying, this case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas. Apparently, even if it requires traumatizing children. A parent also is the government's complete ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. Among others were, quote, he has sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us for quartering large bodies of troops among us. He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. We the people are hearing echoes of that history. And then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment. And it goes on and on like this. It's three pages like this. I'll get to more of it, but just breaking down that first part of it. And he's just pretty openly calling President Trump a tyrant like King George. Breaking it down factually, it's not the case that President Trump is

quartering large bodies of armed troops among the people. He's not keeping standing armies without the consent of the legislature. Again, the American people voted for this policy. This is a very popular policy among polling data, first of all. I mean, the most recent polling data that I could find, it was an Axios-Ipsos poll, showed that 66% of Americans support deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally, 93% of Republicans, 43% of Democrats, and 67% of independents. So those are not small numbers.

You can barely get 66% of Americans to support any policy. He's also not keeping standing armies. That's not what ICE is at all. I also find the claim pretty rich, that President Trump is exciting domestic insurrection when it's pretty openly the case that Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, and other governors and mayors are blatantly telling law enforcement to defy ICE, to defy the Trump administration, to not comply, and to get in the way. And it's not only that they're telling law enforcement to do

that, but they're telling protesters to do that as well. If you want to excite people to illegally defy the government, you use language like this. Here's Tim Walls describing ICE agents. Donald Trump's modern-day Gasapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They're in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye. Just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared. I mean, that's a pretty explicit comparison to the Holocaust right there, and that's just

used to agitate people. That's the point of using that kind of language. And that agitation also has to do with the claim that President Trump is sending swarms of officers to harass our people is also not. the case because you didn't have situations where ICE was running into protesters back during the Obama administration when the same person was leading ICE. Tom Homan was leading ICE under Barack Obama. He received a Presidential Medal of Honor for deporting three and a half million people under the Obama administration. It's the same policy that the Trump administration is trying to carry out now

and you just didn't have these kind of problems where ICE was having encounters with protesters and it was turning violent. You just didn't really have those problems then. There wasn't that kind of agitation among the people. And it's very clearly and obviously due to the fact that that people are getting in the way of ICE intentionally, that these kind of encounters are happening. And that's not to say that ICE is completely in the right in a lot of these encounters, but addressing the judge's claim specifically, ICE isn't just sent out there to harass the American people. Moving on to the second point of contention by this district court judge in this decision, he says,

civics lesson to the government. Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. Again, moving on from just the snarky tone of the whole thing, Up to this point, administrative warrants have been completely legal under the Fourth Amendment, but they're certainly controversial and for good reason. You could definitely run into the problem of circular authority there, where if an administration like ICE gives warrants to itself to be able to do things that it's not legally allowed to do

or is not in its scope to do, then that's certainly a problem, and that's not something that any of us would really want to see happen. But in the same way that any other federal policy has to follow existing law, administrative warrants also have to follow existing law and can be ruled illegal by a judge on a case-by-case basis. A court can overturn an administrative warrant. That's how it works. The executive branch, using administrative warrants,

is executing the law to the best extent that it can. And it can make mistakes in doing that, certainly, and that's why the judicial brands exist to interpret the law for them. When you run into those kind of instances where it's unclear, whether what they're doing is legal or not. And this district court judge, deciding that he doesn't like administrative warrants, does not mean that they are illegal.

Now, you can overturn a particular administrative warrant, but he doesn't do that with this particular case. And as we'll get to in a second, he kind of acknowledges that he doesn't have the right to do that. But looking outside of the decision for a second, well, why do we have warrants in the first place? Well, the Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable search and seizure, so that the police can't just arrest anybody without a warrant when there is not a crime ongoing. Now, that's really the definitional issue that's going on with this case. Is illegal immigration an ongoing crime?

So if a police officer sees you robbing a store, let's say, he can arrest you without a warrant because he sees you committing a crime. you are in the process of committing a crime. If you robbed a store six months ago and weren't caught, and they traced all the evidence back to you, then they would need a warrant to arrest you because it's not an ongoing crime anymore. Well, basically, the federal government is saying

through their administrative warrants, that illegal immigrants are in the act of committing a crime. There's an ongoing crime happening by them being in the United States illegally, and that's what the administrative warrant has said. And logically, that makes some sense. If you are trespassing on somebody's property or you break into somebody's house,

you're not just committing a crime when you step over the boundary. of their property, no, you're committing a crime by trespassing, by being on their property, or being in their house illegally. Now, a judge could presumably say that that is a misinterpretation of the law, but that's not what's going on here. Here's exactly what the judge says toward the end of his decision. He says, ultimately, petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, which is him giving his opinion on the morality of the immigration system, not the legality of that system. And that's his job. But he says, because of the arcane United States immigration

system, petitioners may return to their home country involuntarily or by self-deportation, but that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place. So that's really what he wants here. He just wants a more orderly and humane policy according to him. And he's not really disputing the immigration system itself other than saying that he doesn't think that the type of warrant that they used should be permissible, even though it has been under the way the courts have ruled in the past. So just to put a final dramatic touch on this decision, the district judge ends his decision by saying, Philadelphia, September 17th, 1787. Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have? A republic if you can keep it. He signs off by saying, with a judicial finger in the

constitutional dyke, it is so ordered, signed this 31st day of February 26, which is clearly a typo because there is no February 31st. And then he signs it and puts in pictures of the five-year-old kid involved in the case and includes two Bible verses at the end, including Matthew 1914. which is Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. And the other verse that he puts in the decision is John 1135, which is Jesus wept. So I'll let you draw what you will from his choice of Bible verses to include there. But man, he sure packed a lot into those three pages of this decision. It's really a remarkable read from a U.S. District Court judge.

But it makes the case interesting. Nevertheless, it's going to be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court. they are likely to overturn this district court case and allow President Trump to detain these individuals if they can prove that they knowingly overstayed the date of their asylum case or they missed a court date, which should be fairly easy to prove if it's true by the Trump administration. But it does bring the very interesting case of administrative warrants likely to the Supreme Court in the future, and it'll be very interesting for the future of ICE and deportations in the United States to see what the Supreme Court has to say about this issue. You're listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller.

on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. The next piece of news I have for you this week is a very interesting executive order signed January 29th, 2026, entitled, Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba. The executive order operates under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a state of national economic emergency, which is exactly what President Trump did early last year with regards to China, talking about the trade deficit that we were facing, declaring that a national emergency. And with regards to Canada, talking about the fentany, that was coming into the United States through Canada and through Mexico, declaring that an economic

national emergency as well. This is a very similar kind of idea he's operating under the same bill to claim that the government of Cuba poses those kinds of threats to the United States. He says that I find the policies, practices, and actions of the government of Cuba directly threaten the safety, national security, and foreign policy of the United States, which is also exactly how he set up the Venezuela regime change operation. But to look at what the executive order does and the purpose for the executive order, it claims that the government of Cuba has taken extraordinary actions that harm and threaten the United States. The regime aligns itself with and provides support for numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse

to the United States, including Russia, China, the government of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, to terrorist groups that are funded by the Iranian regime. For example, Cuba blatantly hosts dangerous adversaries of the United States, inviting them to base sophisticated military and intelligence capabilities in Cuba that directly threatened the national security of the United States. Cuba hosts Russia's largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which tries to steal sensitive national security information from the United States. Cuba tries to build deep intelligence and defense cooperation with the People's Republic of China. Cuba welcomes transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, creating a safe environment for these malign groups so that the

transnational terrorist groups can build economic, cultural, and security ties throughout the region and attempt to destabilize the Western Hemisphere. So this seems to be an extension of what President Trump called the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in his national security strategy document, or what he more recently called the Donro Doctrine when dealing with the operation in Venezuela to oust Nicholas Maduro, the dictator there. This seems like a very similar kind of deal in the sense that the United States is imposing its control over the Western Hemisphere, and basically saying that any national security threats within the Western Hemisphere are going to be dealt with either by diplomacy or by military action. Now, this one is going more the route

of economic sanctions. So what the executive order is actually doing is proposing a tariff schedule that the United States can place on any country that directly or indirectly supplies oil to Cuba, which is a very interesting way of attacking this to say the least. So in describing the purpose of the executive order, President Trump seems to claim that Cuba is aligning itself with our enemies, with Iran, with Russia, with China, and with Venezuela. He doesn't mention that specifically, but that is the case that Cuba is aligned with Venezuela. But when you look at the actual effects of the bill,

when we're putting tariffs on the oil suppliers of Cuba, it doesn't really have anything to do with our enemies. So when you look at the data as to who supplies Cuba with its oil, the primary supplier is Mexico. Mexico supplied 44% of Cuba's imported oil in 2025, making it the largest supplier in that period. Venezuela supplied 34% of Cuba's imported oil. Russia supplied about 10% of that oil,

and other suppliers including Algeria, Brazil, and Angola, accounted for about 12%. And to be clear, Mexico and, Venezuela produce almost 100% of their own crude oil. So it's not like they're bringing in oil from Russia, from China, and then giving it to Cuba. And those two countries make up 78% of Cuba's oil imports. So breaking down those groups, Russia is the only one of our enemies listed in there. That's still a factor. Venezuela is not as much of a factor because we in many ways control their oil supply at the moment. But Russia makes up about 10% of Cuba's imported oil. So hypothetically, this would allow us to put more tariffs on Russian oil. coming into the United States, not coming into Cuba, which is intended to be a disincentive for Russia to supply oil to Cuba, which I guess makes sense, but it's not really going to affect Russia very much, because Russia supplies much of Asia and much of Europe with their oil right now, directly and indirectly. Even through the Ukraine war, when the United States and all the other NATO nations have put oil sanctions on Russia,

which have been ongoing, for the most part, they've been retracted to some extent because they just weren't working. And the reason they weren't working is because the European nations are heavily reliant, on Russian oil because of their green environmental agendas. And that's something that President Trump has criticized them heavily for, especially in his United Nations speech in September of 2025. That was something that he harped on. But a lot of those nations have made this known is reliant on Russian oil. So when we put sanctions on them, it just meant that Russia had to supply the oil to them indirectly. So what happened was that Russia sold a lot more oil to India. And India was the one who sold it to those European nations. And it really didn't affect Russia at all that we put those tariffs, those sanctions on Russian oil. So the fact that so, the fact that so, much of Europe and Asia are reliant on Russian oil means that if we put a little bit of an extra tariff on Russian oil, that's not really going to affect Russia's economy very much. So yes, it might disincentivize them from supplying Cuba with oil to some extent, but that's a very small percentage of Cuba's oil in the first place. So I wonder how much the executive order is really going to accomplish, and whether it might

be more of a rhetorical setup for bigger actions in Cuba to happen later. The last piece of news I have for you this week is a bill that just passed through the House of representatives entitled the No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act. The bill requires the State Department to develop a strategy to discourage foreign countries and NGOs, which are non-governmental organizations, from providing financial or material support to the Taliban, including by using U.S. provided foreign assistance to discourage countries and organizations from providing such support to the Taliban. So the Taliban is the terrorist organization that took over Afghanistan again in 2021. As you probably know, we've been fighting the Taliban for a very, very long time for

than two decades at this point. Under President Biden, we withdrew our troops from Afghanistan in 2021 and immediately the Taliban took over the country again as soon as the United States left. So that means that the Taliban has been back in control of Afghanistan for about five years now. The bill accuses the Taliban of funding terror against the United States and against American citizens and American troops abroad. And the US government has officially designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization itself. So there are many countries and non-governmental organizations which are charitable or organizations usually meant for humanitarian aid of some kind that get funding from governments.

They've been a huge part of the post-Cold War American foreign policy. We give NGOs all sorts of money every year to do humanitarian work in other countries. Now, there are some countries that kind of directly support the Taliban, some that indirectly support the Taliban, and there are actually some NGOs that are linked to support for the Taliban. Some of the NGOs that the United States funds that have been linked to the Taliban include the Al-Hara-Mane Islamic Foundation, the World Islamic Call Society, several different Kuwaiti charities, and several different Pakistani relief organizations. Those have been accused of channeling support given by the United States to the Taliban. So while we don't directly fund the Taliban in any way, shape, or form,

from the estimates I could find, we have paid in taxes or fees about $11 million over the last five years in direct payments to Taliban authorities in order to be able to operate there, as far as NGOs go, basically. So NGOs, having to pay taxes within the country to keep operating for humanitarian aid purposes. So that's about $11 million. Not a tremendous amount compared to the approximately $21 billion that we have given in assistance to Afghanistan and to Afghani refugees through NGOs and through other governments that are supporting from nearby.

Now, the problem is that a lot of that humanitarian funding that we send into Afghanistan gets channeled to the Taliban. And that's a big part of what the bill is trying to fix. We don't want our humanitarian aid to be taken away from the refugees who we're trying to give aid to and instead go to a government that funds terror. The best estimate I could find from aid workers in the area suggested that potentially 40% of the humanitarian aid that we are sending to Afghanistan actually gets channeled to the Taliban directly and doesn't actually go to any humanitarian aid purposes. So that's a big thing that we're trying to avoid. We also don't want to support any other foreign countries who are funding the Taliban.

And so that's a big part of what this bill does. We don't want any American funds. We don't want any of our partners' funds to be going to support the Taliban and any of their terrorist operations. So to recap this week, we had a dramatic court case about the authority of ISIS administrative warrants that enable their deportation efforts. We had an executive order declaring Cuba a national security threat in imposing tariffs on our enemies that support Cuba, and we had a bill aimed at preventing U.S. tax dollars

intended to be used for humanitarian aid from being funneled to the Taliban. Tune in next week for more. Well, that's all I have for you today on Under the Radar. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and I want to thank you for listening and encourage you to tune back in next time for more coverage of the news that fell under the radar. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

Thanks for listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller, here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.