The Left's New Lies About ICE Operational History

RedState 

A moral principle is a deeply held belief that can influence or guide our behavior. Moral principles, to have any meaning, should be consistent; even immutable. If an act or a behavior is wrong, it is wrong regardless of the actor. Murdering an innocent person, for example, is wrong no matter who carries out the murder or what their motivation or mental illness may have been. 

Politics isn't a field of endeavor that encourages people to develop strict moral principles - most especially for people on the left, who are all about the side; principals, not principles. Case in point: The Democrats, the activist left, and the legacy media's freak-outs over President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration; the left is shouting their outrage about ICE raids and border closures, but when President Obama was likewise cracking down - crickets. In fact, now they are lying about the "unprecedented" actions of the Trump administration. Here are some specifics:

During which Trump administration did the following happen?

• ICE has been targeting the home of immigrant children, mothers, and families in California, leading one critic to say the raids “go against our nation’s fundamental values of equality and justice for all.”
• Another said, “How then could America say it’s OK to send parents of children away? What value system is that? I think it’s un-American.”
• The American Immigration Council said that “ICE raids have left children without parents and feeling abandoned, separated nursing babies from their mothers, separated pregnant wives from their husbands, and compelled local communities and organizations to scramble to address child welfare crises in their wake.”
• The Los Angeles Times reported that ICE detained two legal immigrant women who’d been led into the country under the Violence Against Women Act. One was arrested in her home after ICE showed up looking for people who no longer lived there.
• ICE agents in Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and Southern California forced their way into homes without a warrant to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally. One mother said an agent threatened her “not to make him mad.”
• One Chicagoan was threatened with deportation, despite being a U.S. citizen who happened to be born in Puerto Rico.
• Northwestern University political science professor Jacqueline Stevens told one news outlet that “I think it’s pretty fair to say that there’s a low but persistent rate of people who are being held by ICE in violation of the law, who are U.S. citizens.”
• The Marshall Project looked at more than 300,000 deportations and, despite administration claims that ICE was focusing on the “the worst of the worst,” it found that about 60% were immigrants with no criminal conviction or whose only crime was immigration-related. Fewer than 20% had potentially violent convictions, such as assault, DUI, or weapons offenses.

The answer, of course, is that all of the above-described incidents happened during the Obama administration. There were no mobs in the streets. There were no riots. There were no assassination attempts. There were no shouting, angry people holding up signs calling for the murder of a sitting President of the United States. Why? Perhaps because the right has a better grasp on what principles are, the right understands, because they have principles, that it's wrong to call for or attempt the assassination of a president.

On the other hand, in the recent "No Kings" stupidity, one could scarcely swing a cat by the tail without hitting an imbecile waving a sign that called for President Trump's removal by force.

Why does this matter? Actually, these incidents, these enforcement of federal laws and immigration policies, are a good thing, no matter which administration carried them out. These incidents are examples of the executive branch of the federal government doing its job. Conversely, failures to carry out enforcement of immigration laws are a bad thing, regardless of whose fundament is occupying a chair behind the Resolute Desk.

President Trump is doing his job. ICE and DHS are doing their jobs. The Border Patrol and the US Marshals are doing their jobs. And left, who were largely silent when the Obama administration was deporting illegal aliens, are screaming bloody murder. 

Why? Principals, not principles.

It’s all about the side. It's all about whether the president or anyone working for him has (or is perceived to have) an "R" or a "D" behind his name. And now, in the case of President Donald John Trump, the incoherent screeching from the left over the president's enforcing the law seems to be magnified tenfold, as the American left is consumed by Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

This isn't a new thing, mind you; we might remember during the administration of Bush the Younger, George W. Bush was reviled by the left as well. Bush Derangement Syndrome was a thing, too. But it seems to be worse now. President Trump, I think, enflames the left for a couple of reasons: He is unapologetic, and he is effective. The left can't stand for that.

But if another Democrat president were to keep President Trump's immigration crackdown going? It's a safe bet that the riots would dissipate, that the cries for murdering ICE and DHS officers would fade away, and that the uproar over the repatriation of illegal aliens would drop to the level it was during the Obama administration - nearly non-existent.

Principals, not principles; that’s the name of this game.