Ah, but what makes you feel good, dear progressive, might not actually translate into progress. Have you heard Trump fulminate about declaring war on Philly? About turning ICE or the armed forces loose on our streets, as in Minnesota? ICE is here, yes, and there have been incidents, sure \u2014 but there is no widespread occupation like in Chicago, where the mayor\u2019s rhetoric helped ratchet up tensions. Instead, Mayor Cherelle Parker has been very strategic about not giving the president or his minions an opening. In fact, I\u2019m told that Parker, knowing that her most sacred duty is to keep you safe, has worked closely with Republican U.S. Senator Dave McCormick to make sure the temperature is lower here compared to other blue cities \u2014 and that the president knows it.<\/p>\n
Among some politicos, Bilal\u2019s comments are being seen as a de facto attack on the mayor\u2019s leadership. The rhetoric of Krasner (author of the \u201cF around and find out\u201d warning to Trump), Bilal and councilmembers like Gauthier actually increases the likelihood of authoritarian disorder visiting our streets. When I called Bilal\u2019s most outspoken critic, State Representative Jared Solomon, the first thing he said about the presser was \u201cI support my mayor and police commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no accident that Commissioner Bethel \u2014 a homerun hire by Parker \u2014 rushed to issue a statement distancing the City from Bilal\u2019s rhetoric. \u201cThe City of Philadelphia is policed by the Philadelphia Police Department, not the Philadelphia Sheriff\u2019s Office,\u201d he wrote, emphasizing that the Sheriff\u2019s Office is a separate elected entity and is not charged with investigating crime or enforcing the law. (Contrary to what all those progressives texting my friend in L.A. might have thought.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t want ICE on our streets making people feel unsafe. But the Sheriff is charged with making the court system safe and there\u2019s no evidence she\u2019s even done that.\u201d \u2014 State Rep. Jared Solomon<\/p>\n
This is not to say Bilal was necessarily wrong on the merits. When she says that \u201cno law enforcement professional wears a mask,\u201d she\u2019s reminding us just how frighteningly abnormal things have gotten. But her \u201cyou don\u2019t want this smoke\u201d theatrics? That\u2019s not a leader speaking; it\u2019s a WWE play-actor. Once you start playing that part, it\u2019s a home game for Trump.<\/p>\n
Besides, Bilal was factually all over the place. \u201cThe criminal in the White House will not be able to keep you from going to jail,\u201d she advised lawless ICE agents. Well, not exactly. Part of the despair of this moment is that Minnesota is being frozen out of the investigation by a corrupt or incompetent Justice Department. It remains a very real possibility that the White House can protect rogue agents from local prosecution. While most experts agree that federal agents don\u2019t have absolute immunity, the nuances of that debate are open to interpretation.<\/a><\/p>\n But why let the facts get in the way of performative politics? Rochelle Bilal has now gotten her 15 minutes of culture war fame. What those well-meaning progressives snapping their fingers may not know is what a disaster she\u2019s been as sheriff. If you care about reform \u2014 as progressives once did \u2014 you\u2019d be loathe to hop on the Bilal bandwagon.<\/p>\n Another reason to dismantle the office <\/p>\n Bilal, like so many of her predecessors,<\/a> is an advertisement for the elimination of the very row office she now holds. Solomon has bravely called her out at every turn, even as his Democratic colleagues in Harrisburg and City Council publicly shrug. Bilal\u2019s misdeeds are too numerous to recount in one sitting (not unlike Trump, come to think of it), but let\u2019s highlight a few of the greatest hits, shall we? Her tenure as sheriff started with whistleblowers<\/a> like Brett Mandel outing \u201cslush-fund\u201d spending, which was followed by the praiseworthy made-up news stories<\/a> she promulgated using ChatGPT, the 76 guns her office allegedly couldn\u2019t locate,<\/a> and the nearly 10 grand of taxpayer money<\/a> given to the creators of the GEICO Gecko for the creation of \u2014 get this \u2014 her office mascot.<\/p>\n The failure of Bilal\u2019s office to sell tax delinquent properties<\/a> in a timely manner has cost the City millions, and has fueled widespread blight. As Solomon points out, her office\u2019s recovery of weapons in domestic violence cases hovers at around 13 percent, while surrounding counties report rates closer to 40 percent. But wait, it gets worse. There was her seeming sneaky attempt to make herself the City\u2019s highest-paid employee \u2014 more than the mayor. Worse, still: Turns out, a number of folks who were buying properties at Sheriff sales weren\u2019t even receiving the deeds<\/a> to their properties \u2014 while they nonetheless paid interest on their loans.<\/p>\n \u201cLook,\u201d Solomon told me yesterday, \u201cI represent the most diverse community in the city. We don\u2019t want ICE on our streets making people feel unsafe. But the Sheriff is charged with making the court system safe and there\u2019s no evidence she\u2019s even done that.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s been Bilal\u2019s response to all the criticism? To blame The Inquirer. Here she was on the CityCast Philly podcast<\/a> in a telling passing of the buck:<\/p>\n Your source is a media outlet that basically is mad. Because when I came in here, what I ran on was not spending $7.5 million on advertising [sheriff\u2019s sales in the newspaper] \u2026 I streamlined all the advertising we was doing and I cut that down. And The Inquirer and Daily News does not get the sheriff\u2019s sale advertisements because they didn\u2019t want to cut [the advertising cost] down and they wanted to keep it as it was. And we wasn\u2019t doing that. So they don\u2019t get it. So that 5-point-something million dollars they used to get from here, they don\u2019t get it anymore. And so then they mad. And so the mad becomes personal. The attacks become every little thing that happens here \u2026 People are getting together to come at the Sheriff\u2019s Office. Why? Because they think I\u2019m the weakest link. I\u2019m the first female in here to run this office and now you think you can gang up on attacking, talk about abolishing the office.<\/p>\n How is this conspiracy-laden \u201cwhataboutism\u201d any different from Trump\u2019s \u201cfake news\u201d scapegoating? When will Bilal or Trump ever admit a critique is justified?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made the case before that corruption in Philadelphia isn\u2019t always illegal.<\/a> We have a long history of our electeds shirking their responsibilities and placing private gain over public interest. As Bilal\u2019s headlines have accumulated, there has been silence from the mayor\u2019s office over the embarrassment that is the sheriff\u2019s office \u2014 but that may change now that Bilal has challenged the mayor\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n On WURD, Bilal took it a step further, complaining<\/a> directly about the mayor to Ernest Owens: \u201cI\u2019m not in the conversation they have,\u201d she said, referring to the administration. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m not even invited to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n This much we know. We\u2019d like to be owning 2026<\/a> \u2014 we are, after all, the city that birthed the nation 250 years ago, no matter what freakin\u2019 Boston says.<\/a> But look at the last two weeks alone. What has made national headlines? In-fighting and a controversial dismissal at the Philadelphia Art Museum,<\/a> tumult and the exit of Jeffrey Rosen from the National Constitution Center,<\/a> and an ethics-challenged row officeholder going viral with an incendiary rant that, at best, is not smart politics and, at worst, invites danger. Philly, we don\u2019t need any of that smoke.<\/p>\n Rochelle Bilal, Philadelphia Sheriff, alongside District Attorney Larry Krasner, at a January 8, 2026 press conference. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, a buddy of mine \u2014 a Philly ex-pat toiling away in LaLa Land\u2019s film and TV industry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29820,69,71,70,595,41857,9781,28726],"class_list":["post-94737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-immigrants-and-refugees","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-police-department","tag-rochelle-bilal","tag-sheriffs-office","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764777427_704_nl_bolt600-copy.jpg\"\/)
MORE COVERAGE OF IMMIGRANTS AND ICE<\/p>\n