A simple, but deeply unfair and manipulative, narrative about ICE’s enforcement of immigration law congealed as soon as Trump took office: ICE enforcement amounts to egregious military-style raids in otherwise peaceful communities, and as such, ICE is responsible for any unfortunate violence that accompanies their enforcement activities.
Obviously, that narrative has gone into overdrive since the unfortunate killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. Facts don’t really matter here; anti-ICE hysterics are impervious to the fact that Good and her partner were specifically engaged in illegal activity. One can argue law enforcement should have behaved differently, but you cannot say Renee Good was an innocent bystander — she put herself in harm’s way. You can’t impede federal officers enforcing the law, let alone suddenly lurch toward them in a two-ton vehicle.
However, arguing about who should have done what in this scenario to avoid her killing is almost beside the point. That’s because the goal of anti-ICE activists is not to reduce violence. There’s a simple way to immediately reduce the threat of violence surrounding ICE enforcement — have local law enforcement cooperate with ICE. Take it from a longtime DOJ prosecutor:
DHS publicly announced that if state officials would cooperate, and assist them in focusing their efforts on criminal offenders — most of whom violate state law and are in state prisons/jails — then DHS would not be arresting many of those it is now arresting.
DHS told the states that if they were forced to go into communities and neighborhoods to “hunt” for the individuals they were targeting, any illegal alien encountered while doing so would be subjected to the appropriate legal process re removal.
30+ years ago when I first began as a federal prosecutor, the Border Patrol would pick-up 20 illegal aliens just released from state prison. The prison officials would turn them over to the BP at the gates of the prison, they would go into federal custody, and they would be put through the deportation process. No release back into the community.
Blue states and cities refuse to do this now. They refuse to notify ICE of pending releases of state/local prisoners who are illegal alien criminals.
They force DHS into the choice of doing nothing or doing what they are doing now.
So who is at fault?
And here’s a former FBI agent and cop saying the same thing:
Exactly. 30+ years ago when I was a police officer in Northern Virginia with a heavily Central American population, we routinely arrested illegal aliens for DUI, assault, domestic assault and other sometimes serious crimes.
At booking, we notified INS, and a van showed up at the jail the next morning to take them into custody. End of story. No protests from deranged boomers more interested in protecting illegal alien criminals than their own community.
Today, that same police department refuses to cooperate with ICE on even serious felons taken into custody. It’s insane.
Notably, we’re not really seeing many ugly situations like what happened in Minneapolis in red states because the police and authorities there have been directed to cooperate. So Democrats have a simple choice before them: They can choose to direct local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, or they can choose to make their own communities more dangerous.
There’s no serious argument that they’re opposing ICE because they care about public safety. Immigration enforcement is a matter of public safety, and yet, Northern Virginia police departments are releasing alleged child sex offenders into their community rather than honor federal immigration detainers. Is the argument that having ICE agents in your community is more dangerous than letting sex offenders roam the streets? Because that is, in fact, insane.
The only way to square this circle is to realize that a large number of communities and states in this country are simply trying to nullify federal immigration law. Some of this sentiment is out of concern for supposedly vulnerable communities, but to a significant extent, the opposition to federal enforcement is for unprincipled reasons. The massive amounts of Somali fraud in Minneapolis have certainly revealed how beholden state and local politicians there are to that particular voting bloc. And at the federal level, blue states have gained power and congressional seats as a result of welcoming illegal immigrants, who get counted in census results.
The opposition to illegal immigration is likely much more coordinated than we know, as there are a number of organizations out there dispensing really bad advice encouraging confrontation of ICE agents because they want a “micro-intifada.” (When you’re borrowing language from terrorist groups such as Hamas to support your cause, don’t expect to be portrayed as the good guys.) But a lot of the ground-level activists don’t need much prodding. They have convinced themselves that confronting ICE is a righteous cause that adds meaning to their otherwise ordinary lives.
Regardless, I thought insurrection was a bad thing, as is trying to overturn the results of an election. According to Gallup, Joe Biden’s encouragement of mass illegal immigration was the most cited reason for his low approval rating. Trump won the popular vote by promising tough immigration enforcement, loudly and often. And ICE is merely enforcing existing, democratically enacted laws. You don’t have a right to keep the federal government from enforcing federal laws, and it is within the power of local and state governments to make enforcing immigration law less contentious and violent.
To borrow a popular slogan on the left, you may not like it, but ICE enforcement is what democracy looks like.
