By Debbie Schlussel
This weekend marks yet another giant, nationally broadcast sporting event in the largely abandoned, decrepit hole otherwise known as Detroit.
It’s Final Four weekend in D-Mecca, with all of the sports world descending on the dying city to see who wins the semis and finals of the NCAA basketball tournament.
And Michigan and Ohio Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are out in full force enforcing . . . the seizure of T-shirts? Yup, instead of enforcing immigration laws and picking up illegal aliens, Michigan/Ohio ICE Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz a/k/a “Abu Moskowitz” is parading his usual “we take dangerous t-shirt selling ‘terrorism’ off the streets” charade, while he sends his agents to act as the trademark enforcement police for the cash-rich NCAA (which should be footing the bill, not taxpayers who paid for immigration enforcement). I’ve written about this tax-funded absurdity before (here and here).

Official Garb of Illegal Aliens?:
ICE Official Abu Moskowitz Hard at Work as NCAA T-Shirt Police Chief

Abu E. Moskowitz:
What Me Worry (About Illegal Aliens)? I Have an NCAA Hoops Party to Attend.
So, if you’re an illegal alien smuggler, this weekend is your time. Go to it. For these four days, t-shirts are far more dangerous to the citizenry than you.

Federal officials warned today they will be working with Detroit police and others to prevent the sale of counterfeit team merchandise during the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament in Detroit this weekend.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a news release that nearly 1,000 pieces of counterfeit collegiate merchandise, ranging from T-shirts to hats, are typically seized outside the host venue of the Final Four each year.
Legitimate retail sales of licensed team merchandise during the tournament normally exceed $10 million, the news release said.
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ICE officials will be working with Detroit police and officials from the Collegiate Licensing Company, said Brian Moskowitz, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Detroit.
“Enforcing America’s counterfeiting laws are about protecting the rights of those who play by the rules and keeping sub-par and unsafe merchandise off our streets and illicit funds out of the hands of organized criminal groups,” Moskowitz said. “Major events such as the Final Four provide a great forum for us to educate the public about the hidden and often misunderstood dangers of this global criminal threat.”

REALITY CHECK: My friends who are ICE agents in Michigan and have worked the Superbowl, the Major League Baseball All-Star game, and other major sporting events for Moskowitz told me what a joke this is, and I’ve noted it on this site in the past.
They say they have a book which tells them to seize t-shirts with sayings like “National College Basketball Tournament” from destitute t-shirt sellers trying to make a buck. How on earth does such a t-shirt constitute “counterfeit merchandise”? Whatever happened to free speech?
The agents say they’ve never ever arrested a single “counterfeit” t-shirt and cap seller. They give the seller the option to have his merchandise seized in exchange for all charges being dropped. Agents tell me that these are all small time people who are mostly Black and trying to survive in Detroit’s ever-lengthening hard times. None of them are part of any “global threat,” and if they were, they’d be arrested.
The whole thing is a joke, and my agent friends tell me they didn’t sign up to be the private t-shirt police for rich sports organizations.
But on this weekend that’s what they are. Res Ipsa Loquitur. The thing speaks for itself.