The Madness Continues as Anti-ICE Activists Protect Pedophiles and Gang Members

When Protecting Americans Becomes Controversial

Here’s something that shouldn’t be complicated. While most Americans spent last weekend enjoying their families, grabbing brunch, or watching football, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were doing what we pay them to do: removing violent criminals from our streets. Murderers. Rapists. Pedophiles. Gang members. The kind of people every sane society agrees don’t belong here.

And yet, somehow, this has become controversial.

The Department of Homeland Security handed over details to The Daily Wire about a nationwide sweep that took place between January 16 and 18. ICE officers fanned out across the country, hitting cities from Baltimore to San Francisco, New Orleans to Philadelphia. They weren’t rounding up people who overstayed visas or committed paperwork violations. They arrested illegal immigrants already convicted of serious, violent crimes.

Think about that for a second. These weren’t arrests based on suspicion. These were people with criminal records. Convictions. The justice system had already determined they were guilty of heinous acts, and ICE was simply doing the follow-through work that common sense demands.

“Our ICE law enforcement never stop fulfilling their mission to make America safe again,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Wire. She added something that should make every American pause: “While Americans were enjoying their weekends, our law enforcement was arresting murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and gang members.”

The Courage Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here’s what gets lost in all the performative outrage about immigration enforcement. ICE officers are facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults against them. Read that number again. Not 13 percent. Not 130 percent. One thousand three hundred percent.

These men and women are getting attacked at rates we haven’t seen before, and they’re still showing up to work. They’re still doing the job. McLaughlin put it plainly: “Despite a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, our officers continue to put their lives on the line seven days a week to remove heinous criminals from American neighborhoods.”

You know what that tells me? It tells me we’ve created an environment where protecting Americans from violent criminals has become physically dangerous for the people we’ve asked to do the protecting. That’s not just backwards. It’s insane.

The operations spanned major cities across the country. Baltimore, San Francisco, New Orleans, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Newark, and Philadelphia all saw arrests. This wasn’t some targeted political stunt in a swing state. This was nationwide law enforcement doing what law enforcement is supposed to do.

When Protest Becomes Sacrilege

But wait, it gets better. Or worse, depending on how much faith you still have in basic decency.

Anti-ICE protests continued throughout the weekend. Fine. First Amendment. Protest away. But here’s where it crossed a line that shouldn’t exist in civilized society: protesters entered a church during Sunday morning worship and started yelling.

A church. During worship. On Sunday morning.

Let that sink in. These activists were so committed to opposing immigration enforcement that they violated the sanctity of a worship service. They disrupted people trying to practice their faith, seeking some moment of peace and reflection in what’s become an increasingly chaotic world. The protesters are now facing potential federal charges for disrupting a church service, which is exactly what should happen.

There’s something deeply wrong when the same people claiming to fight for compassion and human dignity think nothing of barging into a house of worship to make a political point. It reveals what this is really about. It’s not about compassion. It’s about control. It’s about forcing everyone to accept that enforcing our laws is somehow immoral, even when those laws protect us from rapists and murderers.

The Clarity We’re Not Supposed to Notice

The contrast here couldn’t be sharper. On one side, you have ICE officers risking assault and worse to remove convicted violent criminals from American communities. On the other side, you have activists so opposed to this work that they’ll storm churches to protest it.

What are they actually protesting? The removal of people already convicted of violent crimes. People who’ve committed acts so serious that even our often lenient justice system found them guilty. These aren’t sympathetic cases of families being separated. These are dangerous individuals who’ve already proven they’re willing to harm others.

The free market works because it rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior. Society works the same way. When you commit violent crimes in a country you entered illegally, there have to be consequences. That’s not cruelty. That’s basic social order. That’s the foundation of any functioning nation.

Limited government doesn’t mean no government. It means government focused on its core responsibilities. And protecting citizens from violent criminals? That’s about as core as it gets. That’s the fundamental social contract. We give government certain powers specifically so it can keep us safe from people who want to hurt us.

Nobody’s saying immigration enforcement should be cruel or arbitrary. But when ICE arrests people already convicted of serious crimes, that’s not overreach. That’s exactly what we should want. That’s the system working as designed.

The officers who carried out these operations deserve our thanks, not harassment. They’re doing difficult, dangerous work that makes our communities safer. The fact that this has become controversial tells you everything you need to know about how far we’ve drifted from common sense.

American Conservatives