Instead of cooperating with federal law enforcement officers, as states governed by Republicans have done, states run by Democrats, such as Minnesota, work against President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, needlessly creating violence and chaos, which has been so spectacularly on display in Minneapolis this month. Though often left unstated, when pressed, Democrats admit that their goal is to prevent illegal immigrants in their jurisdictions from being deported at all and instead to give them amnesty as soon as legislatively possible. What is clear is that Democrats are not simply opposed to the methods of the Trump administration, but want to prevent immigration law from being enforced at all and to give millions of people citizenship who should not be in the country at all.
During his press conference announcing a suit brought by Minneapolis against the Department of Homeland Security, Mayor Jacob Frey questioned why thousands of immigration enforcement personnel, including agents from both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, have been sent to his jurisdiction.
“If the goal was immigration enforcement, if the goal were simply to look for people that are undocumented, Minneapolis and St. Paul would not be the place where you would go,” Frey reasoned. “There are countless more people that are undocumented in Florida and Texas and Utah. Why are they in these much smaller cities in the middle of the Midwest?”
“The answer is very clear,” Frey continued, answering his own question, “It is politics. Florida and Texas and Utah are Republican states. The reason that Minnesota and Minneapolis are being targeted is because you’ve got a Democratic governor, a Democratic attorney general, and you got Democratic mayors.”
Frey is right that the answer is clear — it is indeed obvious — but it is not the one he suggests. The reason that Minnesota, California, Illinois, and Oregon (all states mentioned in Frey’s lawsuit) have been targeted is that the Democrats who run those states refuse to work with federal law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration law. They are sanctuary jurisdictions. It is those sanctuary policies that make it necessary to surge immigration law enforcement personnel to those sanctuary jurisdictions. It is not politics. If Minneapolis were to cooperate with federal law rather than to resist it, it would not be necessary to send ICE officers in such numbers to do the job.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis launched Operation Tidal Wave, an unprecedented use of ICE’s 287(g) program to integrate state and local law enforcement with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Through these cooperative agreements with state and local law enforcement, more than 10,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested and detained.
In Texas, Senate Bill 8 now requires sheriffs who operate county jails to cooperate with federal immigration authorities through ICE’s 287(g) program, while Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) signed a deal with U.S. Customs and Border Protection giving Texas National Guard members the authority to arrest and detain migrants. More than 12,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested in the Dallas area alone.
In Utah, county sheriffs of Beaver, Kane, Sanpete, Tooele, Utah, Washington, and Weber have all signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, as has the Utah Department of Corrections.
If Democratic governors and mayors worked with ICE, as Republicans do, instead of working against ICE, none of the chaos afflicting Democratic states would be happening. But Democrats don’t want to work with ICE for the simple reason that they don’t believe in ICE’s mission and are determined to resist it. Democrats want as many illegal immigrants to stay in the country as possible so that, as soon as the Democrats have control of the White House and Congress, the illegal immigrants can be granted amnesty and given a swift path to citizenship. Democrats want as many foreigners in America as they can get.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), an alleged centrist, admitted as much this past week. Pressed by CNBC’s Joe Kernen to explain what should be done about those in the country illegally, Warner first tried to present a false choice between securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants from the interior of the country before finally admitting, “There ought to be a path towards legality.” In other words, amnesty.
FRAUD IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF TIM WALZ’S FAILURE
The Supreme Court has been clear. States do not have the right to set their own immigration policies. Republican governed states tried to set more restrictive immigration policies when President Barack Obama refused to enforce the law, and the Supreme Court said their efforts were unconstitutional. States do not have to work with federal law enforcement on immigration law enforcement, but they can’t impede federal efforts to do so, which is what Frey’s lawsuit is trying to do.
Democrats claim sanctuary policies are about compassion, but their own rhetoric gives the game away. They don’t want immigration law enforced in their jurisdictions because enforcement reduces the population they hope to legalize later. By shielding illegal immigrants now through noncooperation, obstruction, and lawsuits designed to tie ICE’s hands, they preserve the numbers necessary for a future amnesty drive. It’s not resistance for public safety. It’s resistance to the proper enforcement of laws that might reduce the number of people in future elections voting for Democrats.