ICE And The Kent State Moment

The inevitable inevitably happened.  A year of escalating attacks on immigration enforcement agents stirred by incendiary political rhetoric ignited an ugly incident in Minneapolis.  A protestor impeding agents was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.  

This may be the Kent State moment for the immigration issue.  More than 55 years ago four students were killed and nine others wounded when several Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire during a Vietnam War protest on the campus.  In the aftermath, protests surged with escalating confrontations.  

Minneapolis erupted in the wake of the shooting, egged on by the governor and mayor.  In the chaos, an ICE agent was ambushed while attempting a traffic stop.  Two illegal immigrants pummeled the agent with a shovel and broom handle.  An agent fired his weapon, wounding an immigrant. 

Then Sunday a mob of anarchists intruded on a church service, claiming an ICE agent was a pastor at the house of worship.  Parishioners feared for their lives as dissidents harassed the worshipers.  Angry instigators bullied parishioners and videoed their terrorizing of innocent churchgoers.  

While there are disputed versions about the deadly shooting, there is no disagreement that anti-ICE activists have escalated attacks on law enforcement officers. Since January, 2025, there have been 238 reported assaults on officers, a 1,150% increase over 2024 when 19 cases were documented.  

ICE agents have been pelted with rocks.  Injured by bricks. Hit with projectiles, including water bottles. Sprayed with chemicals. Dodged concrete cinder blocks tossed from buildings.  Been shoved by agitators. Cursed and spit upon.  Hit with pyrotechnics.  Activists cars have blocked federal agents path.  

Some radicals have clutched the hoods of law enforcement vehicles, daring agents to run them over.  From January 21 of last year until January 7 this year, there have been 66 vehicular attacks on agents. There were only two in 2024.  This represents a 3,200% hike in vehicular skirmishes.

In San Antonio, an illegal immigrant rammed his car into two unmarked ICE vehicles, injuring one agent, who was hospitalized.  A news report said an agent had ordered the immigrant to exit his vehicle.  The man refused and crashed into two vehicles.  The assailant was arrested.  

This vehicular escalation is deliberatively provocative.  Dissidents are trained on kindling confrontations. They covet a belligerent ICE reaction that could be captured on a cell phone and posted online.  Instigators' goal is to prevent arrests, including illegal immigrants with criminal records.

In Minnesota, a loose coalition of groups called ICE Watch, offers training, a manual and support for agitators.  The group published its goals online in 2024, calling for revolutionaries to interfere with law enforcement officers performing their duties.

Among the tactics ICE Watch endorses is "pushing and pulling" an agent off someone arrested.  The collective recommends "totally surrounding" officers and "blocking them and/or their vehicles." Interfering with law enforcement operations is a crime, both at the federal, state and local level.  

An app, ICE Block, was developed by activists to track ICE agents and vehicles with the aim to alert illegal immigrants of an impending raid. The administration took down the app but others have sprouted in its place to thwart the efforts of ICE to arrest illegal immigrants criminals.

Other factions supporting the war on ICE include socialist and communist protest organizations.  Those comprise the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, The Peoples Forum and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.  There are too many others to list 

ICE Agents have not been the only target.  Members of groups use cell phones to identify agents. Troublemakers have doxxed agents families, engaging in cyberbullying, releasing information on agents' home addresses and minor children's schools.  Is it any wonder that ICE agents wear masks? 

Clearly, the aim is to stop the enforcement of immigration law, including the deportation of criminals and terrorists who live among law-abiding illegal immigrant community.  While protests spiraled out of control in Minneapolis, ICE arrested numbers of murderers, robbers, child molesters and rapists.  

Minneapolis is a symptom of an epidemic of lawlessness.  Last summer assailants ambushed officers at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas.  Shots were fired, hitting one agent in the neck.  Three days later, a man unleashed a barrage of gunfire at a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, sending three law enforcement officers to the hospital. 

ICE offcials cite politicians' inflammatory rhetoric for fueling the violence.  Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has vilified ICE as the "modern day Gestapo."  The Gestapo operated as the state secret police during the Nazi regime in Germany.  They employed notoriously brutal methods to suppress opposition.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal called ICE agents "deranged" and advocated the obstruction of immigration enforcement. Rep. LaMonica McIver declared "we are at war" with ICE. Represenative Stephen Lynch smeared ICE agents as "nondescript thugs." Rep. Becca Balint referred to agents as "vigilantes."

There are dozens of examples of other Democrats dehumanizing ICE with Nazi terms, including their favorite, Gestapo.  Comparing law enforcement to Nazi Germany murders is deliberately egregious, emboldening disrupters to adopt the mantle of heroes, saving the country from Hitlerism.

The turmoil, rebellion and demagogic language are ripped from the Democrat playbook for the midterm elections. The party and its loosely affiliated groups are fomenting chaos in communities in an effort to defund and get rid ICE to cripple enforcement of immigration law.

Democrats allege law abiding citizens and legal immigrants are being unfairly targeted, often with no evidence.  The party also refuses to acknowledge that ICE has the authority to apprehend and detain noncitizens who violate immigration laws.

If Democrats disagree with the law, they should lead an effort to change it instead of demonizing ICE agents. They haven't done so because it is politically unpopular nationally. Democrats during President Obama's term supported ICE's efforts to remove illegal immigrants. 

If local police in Democrat-run sanctuary cities assisted ICE, it would eliminate the need for a large law enforcement present on the streets. For instance, just honoring ICE detention orders, would allow for the orderly transfer of illegal immigrant criminals in local jails to federal custody.

However, this is not just a controversy over sanctuary city policies. There is a political calculation for Democrats.  In the U.S. Census, every person is counted in the population, not just citizens.  The population figure is used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives.

Non-partisan Pew Research ran the 2020 Census numbers and conservatively estimated that six primarily Democrat states would lose a seat in the house if illegal immigrants were excluded.  Those include Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia. 

Texas would gain two instead of three seats, if illegal immigrants were subtracted from the total population.  California would lose two seats and Florida would gain two instead of three seats.  In summary, Democrats have more seats at risk if illegal immigrants are not counted in the census.

For the record, Democrats and their sycophant media have contested they would lose house seats, citing left wing studies. Pew Research is the gold standard for nonpartisanship. 

As Minnesota politicians have demonstrated, it is anathema for Democrats to cooperate with federal law enforcement on removing illegal immigrants, including those with criminal records.  This may energize the Democrat base, but it promotes lawlessness in America that will certainly beget more crime.