[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 3, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Nicholas Jon Ganjei

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm 
Nicholas Jon Ganjei to the U.S. District Court for the Southern 
District of Texas.
  I will vote in opposition to Mr. Ganjei's confirmation to a lifetime 
appointment on the Federal bench.
  As the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Mr. Ganjei 
has not been shy about his support for the Trump administration's 
aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. In a speech to the Federal 
Law Enforcement Officers Association earlier this year, Mr. Ganjei 
rebuffed those who view these policies as ``rooted in a lack of 
compassion.'' But look at what happened in Chicago last year and more 
recently in Minnesota just this last month. American citizens, legal 
residents of the United States, and immigrants who have built their 
lives and raised their families here and pose no threat to public 
safety have been targeted.
  Rafael Veraza and his 1-year-old daughter Arianna, both citizens of 
the United States, were enjoying a shopping day at Sam's Club. What was 
supposed to be a normal father-daughter outing ended in a trip to the 
hospital after they were pepper sprayed by Federal agents. Masked, 
armed agents have aggressively arrested U.S. citizens; pushed them into 
unmarked vehicles; tazed, punched, and fired pepper balls at them; and, 
in some cases, wrongly detained them in immigration detention 
facilities for weeks. This was not an isolated incident. In the last 
month, two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were both 
needlessly and unjustifiably killed in immigration officer-involved 
shootings.
  There is no doubt that this administration's immigration policies are 
rooted in a lack of compassion. Mr. Ganjei cheering them on is 
disqualifying. Earlier this year, he reposted a DHS tweet comparing the 
strategy of capturing undocumented immigrants to the Pokemon slogan 
``gotta catch `em all''--as if all of this were a game.
  Mr. Ganjei's record makes clear where he stands on immigration 
enforcement, and I have serious doubts about his ability to fairly and 
impartially render decisions in the immigration cases that make up a 
substantial part of the docket in the Southern District of Texas.
  For these reasons, I will be opposing Mr. Ganjei's nomination.

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