February 03, 2026 09:37 AM UTC

Trump's Immigration Crash-Out Leaves Gabe Evans' Backside In Breeze

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• by: Colorado Pols

With President Donald Trump’s public support in freefall after violence by federal agents carrying out mass deportation operations in Minnesota resulted in the killing of two American citizens, Republicans across the nation are facing a potentially historic wipeout in the rapidly approaching midterm elections. Despite the serious risk to any incumbent Republican who dares to characterize Trump’s first year back in office as anything less than hagiographically perfect, the cracks in MAGA’s creaky edifice are growing wider daily:

Gimenez: "We've been warning the administration about the enforcement that's been going on. We thought there should've been a course correction a long time ago, and now I guess it's gonna be forced on us by the Democrats. We should've been focusing on criminals and gang members, not grandmothers."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 2, 2026 at 7:22 AM

Lest you mistake Florida’s Rep. Carlos Gimenez for some kind of RiNO, here’s what he said just last summer about the opening of the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility:

🚨 Today, I will join @POTUS at the opening of Alligator Alcatraz — a bold symbol of law and order.

Those who entered our country illegally and committed crimes must be deported.

No excuses, no delays.

America comes first. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/je61PXA3CW

— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) July 1, 2025

Rep. Gimenez represents a district rated R+10 by the Cook Partisan Voter Index, and has not faced serious opposition since winning his seat. Gimenez’s willingness to break from the Trump administration this strongly on immigration contrasts poorly with Colorado’s Rep. Gabe Evans, running for re-election in one of America’s most closely-divided congressional districts, but nonetheless an early and sycophantic defender of the Trump administration on everything from mass deportations to tariffs. Over the weekend, the AP’s Nic Riccardi gave Evans a slow-pitched golden opportunity to put daylight between himself and Trump, without any pesky follow-up questions about his prior views.

Evans…didn’t take it:

Evans is a former police officer whose mother is Mexican American. He has urged the administration to focus on deporting criminals rather than people in the country illegally who are otherwise obeying the law — as Evans puts it, “gangbangers, not grandmas.” [Pols emphasis]

So first of all, Evans has not “urged the administration” to focus on “gangsters not grandmas,” a slogan we have derided in this space for months as it failed to comport with reality–now turned against the admistration definitively by Rep. Gimenez. Evans aggressively defended the administration’s mass deportation using those words, absurdly insisting that 100% of ICE’s arrests were justified in the face of the mounting evidence otherwise. The difference between “urging” the adminstration to act a certain way and covering for them by falsely claiming they are acting that way is…well, it’s everything.

But then, the polls being what they are, Evans did throw a small bone to ICE’s growing chorus of critics–for a moment, before reverting to partisan form:

In an interview, Evans said he is worried about the assertion by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that it can search homes with just an administrative warrant rather than one signed by a judge. He said he looks forward to questioning Department of Homeland Security officials during an upcoming House hearing.

Still, Evans blamed Democrats for the Minneapolis standoff and the broader impression that ICE is out of control.

“One side wants to fan the flames and equivocate in this space because they want an issue to run on in November,” he said.

This small sliver of a concession over the “administrative warrants” ICE has been using to raid homes doesn’t change the fact that Evans has been major proponent of Trump’s mass deportation campaign since before his and Trump’s election in November of 2024. Evans appeared at Trump’s rally near Denver International Airport to help sell “Operation Aurora” over the objections of the city’s Republican mayor.

Although there’s little question that immigration was helpful to Trump in retaking the White House in the 2024 election, the brutality and moral indifference in pursuing Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations has shocked and appalled Americans, and turned public opinion solidly against Trump and his Republican enablers up for election in 2026. If Gabe Evans is only now beginning to realize this, it’s months too late to change course–and after expressing nothing but canine loyalty to Trump since taking office alongside him, a hard pivot this late in the game would be laughed at for the plain desperation it is.

Coattails, as it turns out, make for poor life jackets.