Seventh General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Secretary Markwayne Mullin

Washington, DC
Joined May 2026
Many people are reaching out demanding I stop tweeting about judicial activism. The tweets will continue until the activism stops. And the whining will only make me tweet harder!
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James Percival retweeted
The illegal alien who 60 minutes is crying for pretended to be gay to evade deportation He’s literally married to a woman and has two children. Beyond parody
“It feels really empty without him,” says 16-year-old Corey Diawara, whose father was deported in July. His father had lived in the U.S. for 25 years and had no criminal record. Moussa Diawara says he was deported without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge. He was eventually sent to Mali, a country a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told 60 Minutes that Ghana had provided the U.S. with “diplomatic assurances for his safety.” DHS also questioned the credibility of Diawara’s arguments for fearing persecution in Mali. cbsn.ws/4etdVdW
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Notice how the Left only cares about the rule of law when they can use it to prevent systemic fraud from being exposed. But of course I disclosed this consistent with regulation.
Under 8 C.F.R. § 208.6(b), “[t]he confidentiality of other records kept by DHS…that indicate that a specific alien has applied for refugee admission, asylum, withholding of removal…shall also be protected from disclosure…” #DisbarPercival
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This illegal alien is @60Minutes poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations. I pulled his file. His claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is “gay,” just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.
“It feels really empty without him,” says 16-year-old Corey Diawara, whose father was deported in July. His father had lived in the U.S. for 25 years and had no criminal record. Moussa Diawara says he was deported without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge. He was eventually sent to Mali, a country a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told 60 Minutes that Ghana had provided the U.S. with “diplomatic assurances for his safety.” DHS also questioned the credibility of Diawara’s arguments for fearing persecution in Mali. cbsn.ws/4etdVdW
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James Percival retweeted
"This administration is following the law that Congress has passed. There are a lot of people in this population that we talk about, who committed very serious crimes. And people should be very happy with President Trump for getting these serious criminals out of the country." @DHSGenCounsel
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James Percival retweeted
"I think a lot of people who make fear claims– do not make credible ones. There’s a lot of fraud there, and so if somebody found themselves in a different country and decided they’d rather go home then that’s their decision... I absolutely believe with all of my heart that these third country removals have stopped crimes from happening and kept Americans safer and that is our fundamental obligation at the Department of Homeland Security." @DHSGenCounsel
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I talked to @60Minutes for nearly an hour. In our conversation, we talked about the vicious killers and rapists we are removing to third countries and the fact that no President before President Trump removed these public safety threats from our community. Unfortunately, as they always do, they selectively edited the video and included none of that. They did promise they would publish the entire interview, so I look forward to my comments being posted in full this week.
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Big win in the Fifth Circuit on mandatory detention for illegal aliens, a principle codified in 1996 legislation but ignored by the deep state for decades.
BREAKING: The 5th Circuit has ruled that ICE detainees with pending immigration proceedings have no constitutional right to a bond hearing, regardless of the length of their detention. The en banc ruling appears to be 10-7. s3.documentcloud.org/documen…
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In the article, the Hill admits that the injunction only applies when we “know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect [the people] are U.S. citizens.” Yet the headline suggests the judge blocked “most” operations about noncitizen voting, which by definition are not about U.S. citizens.
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The President received a mandate from the American people to build a wall, defeat the cartels, and stop the flow of illegal aliens and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into our country. The Secretary’s authority to build that wall is clear as day, as reflected in DHS’s consistent court victories in similar cases. The court’s order is as unprecedented as it is flawed, and we look forward to the Supreme Court’s expeditious consideration of this important question.
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If only someone had created an easily accessible digital tool to confirm the citizenship of registered voters…
NEW: Los Angeles County elections officials confirm in court filing that they have no way to verify U.S. citizenship for voters and they rely solely on a voter’s attestation when they check yes or no to being a U.S. citizen under penalty of perjury. This is part of ongoing lawsuit w/ Feds.
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Judge Schiltz is a partisan actor cosplaying as a neutral adjudicator. That did not stop commentators on the Left from pretending that his status as a Republican appointee (Bush) gave some credibility to the coordinated judicial insurrection in Minnesota. I feel bad for the jurists who came to his defense before he jumped the shark with his NYT interview.
Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our Nation’s judiciary. Judge Schiltz’s and Judge Tunheim’s on-the-record participation in a recent highly partisan New York Times Article, along with Judge Schiltz’s subsequent public comments, unquestionably calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases. A judge who has publicly taken a political side on the issue of enforcing our Nation’s immigration laws cannot then preside over a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration enforcement initiatives.
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Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our Nation’s judiciary. Judge Schiltz’s and Judge Tunheim’s on-the-record participation in a recent highly partisan New York Times Article, along with Judge Schiltz’s subsequent public comments, unquestionably calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases. A judge who has publicly taken a political side on the issue of enforcing our Nation’s immigration laws cannot then preside over a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration enforcement initiatives.
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While many people know me for calling out the Worst of the Worst, my new challenge coin honors the Best of the Best—the DHS attorneys across our components who fight every day to protect the homeland.
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Praying for my many friends and former neighbors in south Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Follow evacuation instructions, and stay safe!
Florida and Alabama: If local officials issue an evacuation order, follow their instructions and head to your state-designated evacuation zones as soon as possible. Make sure to have multiple ways to stay updated and receive emergency alerts as Hurricane #Isaias develops.
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$3,000 and a flight home is the deal of a lifetime. Leave on your own terms. There truly is no place like home! DHS.GOV/CBPHOME
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NPR lost its federal funding because it became a tool of the Left, perpetuating lies to advance the cause of the Democratic Party. I have spoken with Stephen for hundreds of hours about these issues. He has never once suggested ICE detention should be inhumane. Detention facilities, however, are not luxury hotels, and detained illegal aliens can go home at any time. DHS.GOV/CBPHOME
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Our FY2026 numbers are starting to come in, and they reflect incredible work by our federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida. This year, we built capacity, hired more than 85 lawyers, reorganized our Criminal Division around the threats of today and tomorrow, and aligned our culture around three principles: Protect Americans. Restore Impartial Justice. Defend the Rule of Law. The results: 1,230 cases filed. 1,611 defendants charged. Violent-crime filings up 16.2% and Illegal-reentry filings up 107.4% vs the Biden years. And we’re just getting started.
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To understand the degree of lower court activism DHS faces, look at the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. Over the last 1.5 years, we have asked the Court for emergency relief 10 times on major immigration related policies. We won all 10.
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James Percival retweeted
.@DHSGenCounsel on Third-Country removals: “For many years, because the bureaucracy just didn’t really take this seriously and people weren’t willing to spend the diplomatic capital to remove people, very serious criminals who were removable, would just be released back into the community... The Trump administration has prioritized this.”
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Great conversation with @FoxNews about third country removals and our three-peat of Supreme Court wins.
SCOTUS hands Trump a temporary win on third-country deportations — a tool DHS can use to send removable aliens to nations other than their home country when they cannot be returned there. DHS General Counsel James Percival is now going public with case after case of criminal deportees he says illustrate why the tool matters. The current statutory framework dates to a sweeping 1990s immigration law signed by President Bill Clinton. Percival says previous administrations failed to make aggressive use of authorities already on the books. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December over whether DHS's current procedures comply with federal law, due process and protections against torture. The administration's guidance stays in effect in the meantime. Full story here foxnews.com/politics/dhs-exp…
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