Enforcing federal immigration law is the remit of the federal government alone, per Supreme Court precedent — the court famously ruled against Arizona’s efforts to step up enforcement at the state level during the Obama administration — but said enforcement is a more efficient and safer process for everyone involved when state and local authorities cooperate with the feds. This is basic common sense.
Even in blue Minnesota, the epicenter of the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement firestorm in recent weeks, where two American citizens have been shot and killed in the unrest, a new poll from KSTP and Survey USA, which contains a number of negative findings for the Trump administration, shows that voters there understand the basic utility and wisdom of cooperation. In response to the question, “Should state/local authorities help with immigration enforcement?” a double-digit majority of Minnesotans, 50%-36%, responded in the affirmative.
Despite a deluge of demonization and anti-enforcement propaganda lately, a fresh Cygnal national survey also illustrates strong public support for anti-illegal immigration policies. According to the polling memo:
- 73% say entering the United States without legal permission is breaking the law
- Americans support deporting those here illegally by a nearly 2:1 margin, 61%-34%
- 54% want ICE to enforce federal immigration laws and remove illegal immigrants
- 58% oppose defunding ICE, including majorities of independents and swing voters
The difference between federal and lower agencies working together, versus resistance, is stark. In a Jan. 31 court ruling that declined to halt ICE operations in Minneapolis, a Biden-appointed judge noted that “based on the record before the Court, a factfinder could reasonably credit that Plaintiffs’ sanctuary policies require a greater presence of federal agents to achieve the federal government’s immigration enforcement objectives than in a jurisdiction that actively assists ICE.” It’s glaringly obvious. It’s common sense. Let’s consider how the two approaches work in practice. On one hand, in non-sanctuary West Virginia, collaboration worked exceptionally well in a newly reported operation. According to the Department of Homeland Security, “from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, ICE Philadelphia conducted a statewide surge with 14 of its 287(g) partners in West Virginia, arresting over 650 illegal aliens, including several with serious criminal histories and prior removals.”
Among those taken into custody was an illegal immigrant from India operating a commercial vehicle who was “cited for numerous commercial vehicle infractions for operating an unsafe commercial vehicle” and who had “been previously ordered removed.” What would the objections be to deporting this person, who has already received full due process? Another was a Chinese national who’d already been convicted on multiple counts of endangering the welfare of children in Ohio. Convicted, not accused. What would the argument be against detaining and removing him? “ICE also arrested a convicted child sex abuser, a criminal convicted of drug possession charges, and many others during the operation,” the press release reads. These are operations that occurred with cooperation from local law enforcement “partners in West Virginia.” The rule of law is stronger, and public safety is enhanced, because of this work.
On the other hand, we have New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) just introduced new legislation “to curb local and federal law enforcement agreements,” as the Washington Examiner has reported. In sanctuary New York City, yet another illegal immigrant criminal was just cut loose by a judge. The New York Post describes it this way: “An alleged crack-smoking, sexual-predator migrant wanted by ICE was allowed to flee through a back door of a Manhattan courthouse — infuriating federal agents.” This alleged perpetrator has been released multiple times, including after a horrible incident in 2011, in which the suspect is said to have “followed a 21-year-old woman home in Midtown, choked her and tried to remove her clothes. … He was stopped by a bystander who heard the woman’s cries and came to her aid, holding Mora down until cops arrived.” A police source told the New York Post that “Judge Sheridan Jack-Browne had a copy of the federal criminal arrest warrant for Mora but released him.”
Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute and the Council on Criminal Justice asked, “Has any NYC official tried to explain why releasing someone like this rather than turning them over to immigration authorities is a good idea?” Indeed, what is the affirmative defense for this policy? How is protecting this sort of person from deportation in the interest of any American? Come to think of it, why was this person with no right to be in the country at all still here even after an alleged violent attack on a woman 15 years ago?
The politicians who support this madness should have to spell it out and explain themselves. Part of the problem is that they’re so rarely asked such questions. Many activists with press badges are so busy running interference for illegal immigrants that they seem to have little remaining time or appetite to cover virtually any of the many ICE success stories, or even “speak truth to power” with tough challenges when the powerful are sanctuary politicians with whom they agree.