A Border Patrol agent exposed as a bigoted online troll boasted that “no justice” is coming to him as scrutiny grows on the actions of federal immigration agents involved in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Timothy Donahue, 38, sent a private message on X to another user who had taken him to task over his online activity, and asked whether he feared future repercussions for his behavior as a federal immigration agent. The interaction took place the day after the Daily Beast published an article about a report linking Donahue to an account littered with racist, sexist, and anti-LGBT posts.
The allegations about Donahue’s account emerged after he had been identified as the agent filmed threatening to shoot a bystander during a tense standoff between locals and federal law enforcement during an operation in Illinois in October.
“All you liberals are simple-minded. It’s hilarious,” Donahue wrote to the X user in December, who had initiated the exchange by sending the Border Patrol agent a crude direct message asking him how he would cope were he ever jailed. “The real question is, what are you gonna do about [it]? There is no justice that comes to me...”
The conduct of ICE and Border Patrol agents is under the spotlight following this month’s fatal shootings in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of American citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37.
After Trump’s Vice President JD Vance said in the wake of Good’s killing that the agent in that case is “protected by absolute immunity,” analysis by the Washington Post published on Tuesday found that Department of Homeland Security officers had been responsible for 16 shootings since July, but none had been charged.
Donahue was part of Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino’s notorious “Green Machine” team before Bovino was moved by Trump out of Minneapolis amid rising public anger over Pretti’s killing.
He was identified in December as the armed agent seen in viral footage from a chaotic arrest in Evanston, Illinois, tied to “Operation Midway Blitz,” six weeks earlier on Oct. 31.
Video showed the bearded agent twice aiming his firearm toward onlookers while yelling warnings to back away as residents screamed.
The confrontation followed a car crash during the operation, which saw three people detained before being released without charge. U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis later issued a sharply critical court opinion describing agents driving erratically through stop signs and red lights before a sudden turn that led to the collision.
The judge also referenced footage showing an agent repeatedly striking a man in the head and detaining bystanders on the sidewalk. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss publicly condemned the episode as “lawlessness.”
ICE List, the self-styled “accountability initiative,” said it had used FOIA material and the local crash report to identify Donahue. Independent Chicago outlet Unraveled then connected Donahue to an X account that promoted racist, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT material over several years.
Posting on X as @Timothy77593126, in April 2024, Donahue wrote “Based” under a meme of a white father disowning his daughter for taking a Black boyfriend to prom. He later posted the same word under a clip allegedly showing two men attacking a gay man.
Asked to “share an unpopular opinion” in January 2023, he replied, “Some cultures are better than others.” He also shared white supremacist posts.
In September 2023, Donohue—who married in Ohio in 2011—answered “Yes” when asked if America would be better if women couldn’t vote.
The next month, he posted “Woodchipper” under a drag queen with a child and “Good” under a story on trans fear after a Nashville school shooting carried out by a transwoman.
The account’s display name changed multiple times following media inquiries, but it remains active at the time of publication.
Donahue, from Yuma, Arizona, continues to be employed as a Border Patrol agent and was filmed in the aftermath of Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis. There is no suggestion that he was involved in that incident.
The Daily Beast asked the Department of Homeland Security and White House whether Donahue was correct in his assertion that there is nothing he could do to be fired. Donahue was also contacted for comment.
None of them responded.
