As thousands protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) removal of illegal aliens (many felons) in Maine and Minnesota – under longstanding federal laws – one central fact is worth restating: America is a republic founded on laws, but laws only work if enforced.
America’s second president, John Adams, wrote we are a “land of laws, not men,” meaning that our future depends – now as then – on the consistent, unbiased enforcement of our laws, not on whim.
America’s leading immigration statutes are decades old. They have been consistently enforced by Democrats and Republicans – at federal and state levels – for the majority of our republic’s history, until recently. The motivation for not enforcing immigration laws is worth exploring and is unsettling.
For all the controversy swirling around Democratic Presidents Obama and Clinton, they enforced the Immigration and Nationality Act (INS), a 1952 law (8 USC 1101) intended to protect Americans, our nation’s sovereignty, the sanctity of citizenship, and “good order” within our borders.
President Obama’s ICE agency, specifically the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division, aided by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), removed 3.1 million illegal aliens during his term – that is, those not lawfully in America.
During President Trump’s first term – although impaired by distracting and politically inspired investigations – ICE removed 930,000 illegal aliens, a third of the number Obama deported.
In each of those administrations, and in this administration, the objective was to protect Americans, protect the nation’s borders, security, sovereignty, citizens, and good order. The unspoken – but obvious – second-order goal was to deter illegal entry and traffickers from coming
Unfortunately, during Biden’s disastrous four years, the immigration (INS) laws were not just unenforced, but flouted. Rather than deterring illegal entry by effective border protection, vetting of asylum claims at the border, requiring claimants stay in safe third countries, and assuring illegals were conscientiously removed by ICE and HIS, they did the reverse. They encouraged illegal entry.
The result is what we – President Trump, ICE’s ERO and HIS teams, virtually every governor, you and I – face today. We have communities of citizens with an additional 5.4 million illegal aliens, many felons in their country of origin or here, added to the 14 million already here in 2020.
These facts are not in dispute; they are ironclad. Equally ironclad is the law. In order to remove – with legal authority – the 19.5 million illegals in America, a concerted, focused, determined effort must be made, or the nation stands to be overrun and undone by this contingent of illegal actors.
President Trump ran on a commitment to remove these illegal actors – which includes foreign nationals not on a valid visa, not permanent residents, not naturalized, either arrested or convicted in their home country or here, those who entered fraudulently or committed fraud here.
The removal process itself – again long used, constitutionally tested, and legally sound – is being followed. While agitators, illegal actors, groups pushing illegal immigration – for lawless advantage in census and to press illegal voting – are up in arms (some literally), this is wholly unjustified.
Again, ICE works under Title 8 or the US Code, the Immigration and Nationality Act, which fully authorizes removals by force, without treading on the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, or 14th amendments. They have the authority to arrest without a judicial warrant, unless entering a home.
The warrants they use are administrative, focus on one person, are backed by evidence, and amount to the same right a law enforcement officer has to arrest any criminal on the street, “probable cause” that they are involved in a criminal act, or “reasonable suspicion.”
The law is rock solid on this right, as it is in limiting the First Amendment to non-violent acts. Under Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), if a protestor crosses the line into speech “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action,” they become subject to apprehension, arrest, and, if necessary, use of force up to and including deadly force.
This is not lawlessness, but the authority of ICE – and all law enforcement – to respond to lawlessness. This is what we authorize law enforcement officers to do, to keep us safe.
In the specific instance of operations removing illegal aliens, where violence is predictable, police of all kinds have full authority under Brandenburg – to act against illegals and those harboring them.
So, the law is not being violated by ICE, quite the reverse. As in prior administrations, they are using legal authorities to protect citizens, permanent residents, and legal visa holders against those here illegally and acting illegally.
Final point: When Democrat Governors and Secretaries of State in Maine and Minnesota vocally encourage resistance to law enforcement, disempower local and state officials from cooperating with ICE, call ICE “secret police” – as reckless Governor Mills of Maine did – and push pamphlets insinuating citizens and illegals should use violence, they are inciting lawlessness.
At this point, with several notable exceptions, violence has not turned into universal chaos, mayhem, and large numbers injured and killed in affected states, but it could.
The reckless words and incitement by Maine and Minnesota Democrats are deceptive, dishonest, and manipulative. Bluntly, they are endangering the public. The right answer is for Democrat leaders stop maligning law enforcement, be calm, respectful, and allow longstanding laws to be enforced.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
