The resistance in Minnesota to Trump’s deportations has undermined law enforcement efforts, including the biting off of an officer’s finger. Amid defiance, it would set a terrible precedent if the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were to give up on its legitimate operations to enforce the law.
Two women were charged for separate incidents in Minneapolis over the weekend, each with biting the fingers of federal officers. Shockingly, a federal judge released both of them without even requiring any bail, despite their allegedly having harmed the officers in this barbaric manner.
After an agitator had purportedly kicked a chemical canister at officers, one of the officers was then tackled by a protester while attempting to perform an arrest. When the officer sought to remove a mask from the assailant’s face, she allegedly bit one of his fingers.
Physicians were unable to repair the officer’s fingertip that had been bitten off by the protester. Gloves saved the other officer from permanent damage from the separate biting by another suspect.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday there was reportedly an assault on a border patrol agent near the Arizona-Mexico border, and a suspect has been taken into custody. The location was near where pro-migrant protests have been occurring.
Last week, prior to these recent acts of violence, Trump indicated that he may invoke the Insurrection Act. This would authorize him to bring in the National Guard or the military to overcome the resistance.
The safety of the officers should remain the highest priority in the face of violent resistance in Minnesota and elsewhere. “We need real consequences for attacking law enforcement,” said the former captain of the NFL Minnesota Vikings, Jack Brewer.
“These men and women should be able to do their jobs and go home to their families safely,” he added. Brewer explained that liberals are so opposed to ICE because “we’re deporting their voters.”
“There is something wrong in Minneapolis,” Brewer observed about Leftists there. “People have completely lost reality.”
Scuffles can turn deadly in a heartbeat when someone impedes officers while they do their job in seeking and apprehending criminals. Bystanders have a right to protest peacefully, but a physical confrontation while armed is very different from merely protesting.
Trump was right in his initial response on Saturday night to the shooting then by ICE in Minneapolis: “I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also.” No one should be defending anyone who carries those items without ID into a confrontation with officers.
Someone who physically resists law enforcement with concealed weaponry poses a grave risk to the officers and the public. Texas is perhaps the most pro-gun state in our country, and it has a legal requirement of disclosure of carried weapons by a citizen in a confrontation with police, as do many other states.
While peaceful protesters have a right to bear arms, physical resistance to officers should not be done while carrying loaded firearms. An altercation, while possessing a loaded gun, with an officer unnecessarily places the lives of officers and bystanders in jeopardy.
A large percentage of citizens in Texas carry firearms, and yet nothing like the resistance being seen in Minneapolis is happening in Texas or any red state. The resistance in Minnesota has put ICE officers in life-threatening danger, as in the case of the officer allegedly struck by a car, who fired at the driver and killed her.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been one of the strongest defenders of the ICE officers in Minnesota, which is next door to her home state of South Dakota. On Tuesday, Trump had a one-word response to a reporter’s question about whether she would resign as Democrats are demanding: “No.”
Armed or violent resistance to the eradication of criminal illegal aliens from our country is going to result in some casualties among those who endanger federal officials. Curtailing law enforcement due to Leftist opposition would be a grave mistake of capitulation.
Meanwhile, Trump is boycotting the Super Bowl this year, and Corey Lewandowski, a top advisor at the Department of Homeland Security, vows that ICE will be there in Santa Clara, California. “There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski confirmed on “The Benny Show” podcast.
“Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else,” Lewandowski added. Super Bowl tickets cost an estimated $6,000 to $8,000 per seat, and $25,000 for a seat near midfield; it is difficult to accept that illegal aliens are attending at those prices.
The NFL awarded its prized halftime show to the anti-ICE performer Bad Bunny. Trump won’t be attending and perhaps he’ll tune into the rival patriotic halftime show instead.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.
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