The first U.S. military flights deporting criminal illegal aliens to Guantanamo Bay included members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the feds have designated a foreign terrorist organization. This gang and others are active in metro Atlanta. Yet U.S. Sen. John Ossoff, D-Ga., continues to slam Trump administration deportations and detentions. At a Saturday rally he flatly attacked “prison camps for migrants.”
Ossoff is clearly doubling down on defending his open borders record and attacking Trump. Even though the battleground Democrat faces a difficult re-election campaign in 2026, Ossoff’s office says he will especially be leading the opposition to Trump’s detention of migrants at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
At the same time, some Democrats wonder if that is the right approach for the only incumbent Democrat senator in the nation who’s running in a state won by Trump last year. After all, they argue, polls in Georgia and elsewhere show that an open borders policy is hugely unpopular, and deportations are popular.
“We oppose placing U.S. military and DoD (Department of Defense) civilian personnel in the legally and morally tenuous position of conducting mass migrant detention operations. Our men and women in uniform are warfighters, not jailers of migrants,” Ossoff also said in a joint statement with other Senate Democrats.
Republicans seeking to unseat Ossoff with their own candidate emphasize that he has consistently opposed legislation in Congress’s upper chamber to secure the southern border. Breitbart News published this record:
- In March 2024, he opposed a version of the Laken Riley Act to ensure the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) takes custody of illegal aliens that are arrested, charged, or convicted for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. He later flip-flopped in support of the bill in January 2025
- In August 2021, he opposed a measure that would prevent illegal aliens from obtaining conditional or lawful permanent resident status in the United States
- In June 2023, Ossoff voted against a measure that would restart construction of the border wall
- In March 2024, Ossoff voted to table an amendment that would continue Title 42, an authority to enforce border security
- Ossoff twice in February 2021 voted against supporting Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy for illegals
- Ossoff in March 2024 voted in favor of Biden’s CBP One app to facilitate illegal aliens entering the United States
- Ossoff in March 2024 defended funding for Biden’s flights for migrants program
