You may not be aware, but from January 1, 2026, until May 27th 2026, there have been 494 arrests made in Omaha of those who are in the country without the proper documentation. There have been 64 arrests in Lincoln, 60 in Grand Island, and 49 in Fremont have been detained or abducted, depending on your point of view, by ICE agents. That’s a total of 622 of our neighbors in eastern Nebraska, or an average of five and a quarter a day.

The hunger strike and the protests at a New Jersey detention center have put the roundup of illegal immigrants somewhat back in the news. After the shock and awe of the military-style arrests in places like Los Angeles and Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two innocent protesters, the government has been much quieter in its crusade to deport immigrants. But they certainly haven’t stopped.

The Trump administration has recently put up a website that posts updates on the number of immigrants arrested and the crimes they allegedly committed.

The website aliens.gov is a site that aggregates directly from arrest reports and pulls data from the Department of Homeland Security.

After a long introduction in the style of The X-Files, you can click on a map that will show you the number of those arrested in each city. The website is riddled with errors, and many of the crimes they were supposed to have committed don’t deserve such a harsh penalty. Many of the charges listed are vague, to say the least.

Conservation, Traffic offenses, Fraudulent offenses and General Crimes are all listed on this website as reasons they were captured by federal agents.

To be fair, some have been charged with arson, sexual assault, and drug offenses, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would think that a person who has possibly lived in this country for decades and has only committed a minor traffic offense should be treated so inhumanely.

And even Chat GPT doesn’t know what kind of crime conservation is. It accused me of meaning conspiracy instead of conservation. Maybe it should be a conspiracy charge. If it is, Chat GPT needs to take it up with its fellow computer and stop accusing me of not knowing what I’m talking about.

Aliens.gov not only lists the crimes these people are accused of having committed but also lists the countries where these people came from. When it was first released, the website said that some of the detainees’ countries of origin were the United States. When a media outlet brought that to the administration’s attention, they took that off the site.

Taking it off the website doesn’t mean that people born in the United States haven’t been arrested by ICE agents. They have. And while most, if not all, of them eventually get released, it shows the chaotic and unprofessional nature of this project.

America needs immigrants. Immigrants need America. For Congress, the Trump administration, and far too many Americans, to ignore that fact seems like it ought to be just as big a crime as some of the crimes those detainees are charged with.

The only reason so many of those people are in the country illegally is the failure of our elected officials from both parties over the years to change the laws and expedite the process so these workers can come into the country legally.

So much has happened so fast and continues to flood the news zone, it’s impossible for people to keep up. Being outraged and angry about everything gets old and tiring. It’s understandable that so many people are tuning out.

And if you only get your news from websites or politically biased cable channels, your algorithms might not show you what’s going on when it comes to illegal immigration or other important issues facing the country.

But the massive arrests and poor overcrowded accommodations are still going on, even if the arrests aren’t as sensational and on camera as they were last winter.

It’s totally understandable if the plight of the rising cost of gas and groceries occupies your attention more than what is happening with our immigrant population. And while it might not be the most important thing on our radar, we need to be aware of the plight of those less fortunate than us, people whose only crime might be that they wanted to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.