Attack ads in the U.S. Senate race — Dan Osborn versus Sen. Pete Ricketts — frame Osborn as soft on immigration and for “amnesty.” This page is the public record, not a campaign mailer.
Ads vs the record
If an immigration spot just landed in your Omaha or Lincoln feed — TV or digital — it is probably selling a simple story: Osborn wants open borders, or a blank-check amnesty. Campaigns do that because the scare word fits a 30-second slot. The record is longer.
Watchdog rule: quote what he said, cite who reported it, and leave out what nobody can verify. That includes whether ICE ever confirmed a tip.
Nov. 3, 2026 · Osborn vs Ricketts
The ads say he’s for open borders and amnesty. His public record is border security plus immigration reform — and as a union leader he worked to flag alleged undocumented replacement labor during the Kellogg’s strike.
That is not a permission slip. It is also not the cartoon. He has argued Nebraska needs a real border, criticized wasteful or overreaching enforcement tactics, and talked about reform for longtime non-criminal undocumented workers — the language campaigns flatten into “amnesty.”
Source: CNN KFile — June 19, 2026 ↗What the ad implies
The spots collapse every disagreement about tactics, budgets, or legal status into one charge: he would throw the border open and legalize people who broke the law. The Ricketts campaign used that frame on day one — telling The Hill that Osborn would “vote with Democrats to open the border.” At the State Fair, Ricketts said Osborn’s reform talk is a path to citizenship for people here illegally.
Sources: The Hill, July 8, 2025 · Examiner, Sept. 1, 2026
What the record shows
In public, Osborn has said “without a border we don’t have a country,” backed adding border agents, and described ICE’s basic mission as keeping communities safe. He has also said the agency’s ballooned budget is wasteful and that enforcement should use the same common-sense standards as other law enforcement. Reform talk in his platform is about longtime non-criminal undocumented workers — not a campaign slogan that says “amnesty for illegal aliens.”
Sources: KSNB, 2024 · Wikipedia platform summary
CNN KFile · reported June 19, 2026
During the 2021 Kellogg’s strike, Osborn was president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 50G in Omaha. On a December 2021 pro-union podcast, CNN’s KFile reported, he said Kellogg’s was replacing strikers with “a good percentage of undocumented workers,” and: “We have been in contact with Homeland Security and ICE. We’ve made our claims. I hope they do the right thing and investigate our claims.”
In 2026, his Senate campaign told CNN a narrower version: he contacted the Douglas County Sheriff for reporting procedures, then passed that guidance to his team. Others, the campaign said, contacted DHS and ICE “in their individual capacity.” He says he did not personally contact DHS or ICE.
What this page will not claim
CNN reported the podcast and the campaign’s later account. That is not the same as ICE confirming it received a tip, opened a case, or found undocumented workers at the plant. Do not treat a 2021 union allegation as a federal finding.
Border security
On the 2024 trail, Osborn told KSNB he was frustrated that Washington had talked about the same problem for decades: “That’s where I get frustrated, because without a border we don’t have a country.” Wikipedia’s campaign-platform summary lists increasing border security — and, in that 2024 framing, building the border wall — alongside immigration-system reform.
ICE’s job vs ICE’s tactics
At the 2026 State Fair, the Omaha Daily Record / Nebraska Examiner reported Osborn agreed with ICE’s basic mission: keep communities safe. He also said the Biden-era border had failed. In the same breath he called the jump from about $7 billion to $80 billion in ICE funding “wasteful government spending,” and said he would push training, accountability, and body cameras. In February 2026 he told the Examiner ICE should operate under “common sense” and “consistent standards” that other law enforcement follows — while Congress pursues “comprehensive immigration reform that works for everyone.”
That is criticism of tactics and cost, not a public call to abolish the agency. Ads that flatten the two are doing politics, not reporting.
Reform is not the scare word “amnesty”
Wikipedia’s platform summary says Osborn supports reforming the immigration system and exploring ways to legalize non-criminal long-term undocumented workers. In a 2024 Semafor interview he called that “meaningful immigration reform”: people who have been neighbors for decades, a need to vet newcomers, more lawyers and judges, and no “willy-nilly” entry for people who could be dangerous. CNN later described the same mix — tough border language plus a path for longtime undocumented residents — as the lane he has tried to occupy on the trail.
Fair distinction: that is earned-status / reform language. It is not the same sentence as “amnesty for illegal aliens,” which erases vetting, criminal-record limits, and the border-first condition he has attached to the idea. Ricketts has called the reform talk a path to citizenship; Osborn’s own words are narrower than the ad’s.
This is the U.S. Senate race: Dan Osborn, a registered nonpartisan running as an independent, versus incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts. It is not the governor’s race. Gov. Jim Pillen is running for re-election against Lynne Walz — a different ballot line, different ads.
Context, not a scorecard: at the State Fair, Ricketts cited an endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council, the Border Patrol union. That tells you how he wants the immigration contrast drawn. It does not rewrite Osborn’s public quotes.
Sources & Further Reading