Mark Hemingway of the Federalist focuses on the true aim of anti-ICE activists.
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. …
… 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.
