Trump, Immigration, and ICE

Trump, immigration, and ICE by Lou Rockwell.

Do illegal immigrants have the right to stay in America

or can they be deported?

Of course, they do not have such a right.

Furthermore, as Brian McClanahan of the Abaville Institute

has pointed out, the Supreme Court has in numerous cases

ruled that control of immigration is a federal matter,

not one under state jurisdiction.

You can argue that these precedents are wrong,

but that is the law as it exists today.

That being so, if progressive governors

like Tim Walls of Minnesota oppose the removal

of illegal immigrants, they cannot block

immigration enforcement within their state.

They have no obligation to use state officials

to help ICE agents.

And if demonstrators against ICE attack agents

or try by force to free those they take into ICE custody,

state officials must arrest them.

For some conservatives, that is the end of the matter.

The demonstrators are a raging mob who have only themselves

to blame if some of them are injured or killed.

Thus, writing in the spectator, Dan McCarthy, says,

the Border Patrol officer or officers

who shot Alex Pretty might have been wrong,

but the presumptions of civilization

are on law enforcement side.

If there is violence between officers and someone else,

officers have the superior right to use force.

The attempt to negate laws through mob actions

and systematic harassment campaigns,

which is what the anti-ice activists have been conducting,

are wrong in themselves, whether or not the laws

are entirely right.

This is because, as everyone knows,

America is not a totalitarian society.

Elections do matter, and immigration enforcement

is necessary for any country.

It's a basic form of the rule of law.

It is not fascism.

I believe that this view is entirely mistaken.

The ICE agents have acted in an arbitrary and violent way,

inimical to the rule of law, as if they were free to injure

or even kill anybody who gets in their way.

Jim Bovard aptly compares the killing of Alex Pretty

to the killing of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge by an FBI sniper.

He says,

On Saturday, federal agents in Minneapolis

killed protester Alex Pretty,

shooting him in the back 10 times

after they had taken away the pistol he legally carried.

White House deputy chief Stephen Miller quickly settled the issue.

A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement

and the official Democratic count sides with the terrorists.

A few hours after Pretty was killed,

I commented on Twitter X.

How many of the Trump supporters cheering the killing

of the Minneapolis demonstrator today would also cheer

for the FBI sniper,

killing Vicki Weaver in her cabin door at Ruby Ridge in 1992.

This outraged plenty of Trump supporters,

but the parallels between the federal killings in 1992

and on Saturday are striking.

Trump supporters insisted there was no comparison

between Pretty's death and Vicki Weaver

because Weaver was unarmed,

but Vicki Weaver had a 0.380 gun on her side under her sweater.

When the FBI sniper blew her head off

as she was holding her 10 month old baby.

Neither she nor Pretty was brandishing

before getting shot to death by the feds.

Trump officials justified killing Pretty

because he had a pistol,

even though vast numbers of conservatives

have brought pistols and rifles to protest in recent years.

Similarly, the rule of engagement for FBI snipers

was any armed male adult observed

in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be killed.

In a federal appeals court ruling,

Judge Alex Kaczynski denounced that rule

as a new James Bond agent, 007 standard

for the use of deadly force against American citizens.

After Pretty was shot more than 10 times,

DHS Secretary Kristi Nome said he was a domestic terrorist

who sought to inflict maximum damage on individuals

and to kill law enforcement.

Nome announced that Pretty approached border patrol officers

with a 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol.

The officers attempted to disarm this individual

but the suspect reacted violently.

Videos of the killing show that Pretty had a cell phone

in his hand, not a gun,

before federal agents knocked him down

and began beating and pistol whipping him.

Trump's DHS considers videotaping agents

to be the equivalent of a hostile attack

that justifies a violent federal response.

Some Trump supporters declared that Pretty deserved his fate

because he intentionally chose to place himself

in deadly peril by purportedly assaulting federal agents.

In both the Minneapolis and Ruby Ridge cases,

federal officials claimed a right to preemptively kill

their targets and then cover up the killings.

After killing Pretty, DHS officials seized cell phones

of bystanders and blocked Minnesota state law

enforcement officials from conducting any investigation

at the crime scene.

DHS's apparent cover up was so brazen

that a Trump-nominated federal judge issued

an emergency order on Saturday near midnight

ordering DHS not to destroy further evidence.

It remains to be seen how much honest evidence

will be permitted to be disclosed.

Unlike most police departments,

most ICE and border patrol agents

don't wear body cameras to videotape their shootings.

Congressional Republicans following the Trump White House

lead blocked efforts by Democrats

to require those federal agents to wear body cams.

Many Trump supporters would vigorously condemn

the FBI killing of Vicki Weaver nowadays,

but the issue is not how many people disapprove

of her killing after the cover up collapsed.

Trump officials are already dropping a cloak of sanctimony

over the latest federal shooting in Minneapolis.

According to Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino,

Pretty was only there to kill people

and it was a good job for our law enforcement

in taking him down before he was able to do that.

This standard would preemptively justify

the killing any individual who the Fed's label

as a threat after shooting him.

Will we ever learn the rules of engagement

that DHS agents are now using

to shoot American civilians?

Will we ever see the possibly panic texts

and emails from DHS bosses in Minnesota

to the Trump White House about another

bloody public relations fiasco?

Will we ever see the evidence

that federal agents seized after Pretty was perforated?

How can anyone who is paying attention,

approve of Pretty's killing,

despite all the false and far-fetched federal claims

regarding his demise?

How can freedom survive if so many Americans

blindly believe any proclamation

by government officials and political hacks?

There was nothing illegal about Pretty bringing a gun

into an anti-ice demonstration.

Gun rights groups emphasized that Pretty was legally permitted

to carry a firearm under Minnesota law

and that carrying a gun into a demonstration

or protest is not prohibited by state law.

Minnesota does not have a specific ban

on firearms at protests.

So carrying a weapon, even a loaded one,

was lawful for someone with a valid carry permit.

The Second Amendment protects an individual's right

to bear arms even while attending a demonstration

and that right doesn't disappear

just because someone is observing

or recording law enforcement activity.

This is a foundational point for many gun rights

organizations responding to the controversy.

They pushed back strongly against federal officials

comments.

For example, an assistant US attorney's post saying,

people approaching law enforcement with a gun

could be legally justified.

Targets drew criticism.

Groups like the National Rifle Association, NRA,

called such statements dangerous and wrong

asserting that mere lawful possession

shouldn't be equated with justification

for use of deadly force.

Others, including the gun owners of America,

reiterated that federal authorities

must not infringe on the right to bear arms while protesting.

Under the US Constitution, Congress

has primary authority to make immigration law.

Article 1 gives Congress the power

to establish a uniform rule of naturalization

and regulate borders.

The executive branch, including agencies like ICE,

is tasked with enforcing those laws.

This distinction is central to debates about executive actions

that significantly alter how immigration law is applied.

A president cannot simply rewrite immigration law.

He can issue executive orders and set enforcement priorities,

but those must be rooted in statutes passed by Congress.

Scholars often point to the Administrative Procedure Act,

APA, separation of powers principles,

and the non-delegation doctrine, when assessing

whether aggressive executive enforcement

oversteps congressional authority.

A number of scholars emphasize that immigration lawmaking

belongs to Congress.

And they are skeptical of executive actions

that effectively reshape immigration policy

through enforcement choices.

Peter Margulis, who teaches at Roger Williams University,

is a leading immigration law scholar.

He argues that broad enforcement initiatives

risk collapsing the distinction between enforcing

and making law.

He is critical of executive immigration policies

under both parties that bypass Congress

and rely on sweeping discretion.

He emphasizes that the Administrative Procedure Act,

APA, limits, and the need for statutory grounding.

Shobha Sivaprasad-Wadia, who teaches at Penn State,

is an expert on prosecutorial discretion in immigration.

While she accepts some executive discretion,

she is warned that unbounded discretion

can undermine rule of law constraints

and congressional supremacy.

She is critical of opaque enforcement searches

and mass operations lacking clear standards.

Other scholars focus on ICE's reliance

on administrative warrants.

David A. Martin, who teaches at the University of Virginia,

is a former DHS general counsel

and respected constitutional scholar.

He has written critically about ICE's use

of administrative warrants for home entries,

emphasizing the constitutional vulnerability

under the Fourth Amendment and argues

that immigration enforcement does not create

a Fourth Amendment exception.

Stephen Legomsky, who teaches at Washington University

in St. Louis, is one of the most cited immigration law

scholars and is a long-time critic

of aggressive interior enforcement tactics.

He emphasizes that civil immigration violations

do not justify criminal-style enforcement methods

and has warned that ICE practices often erode due process

norms.

Other scholars argue that large-scale federal immigration

operations can encroach on state sovereignty

and effectively turn immigration enforcement

into general policing.

Ilya Somin, who teaches at George Mason University,

is a libertarian constitutional scholar.

He is critical of both sanctuary state coercion

and aggressive federal immigration enforcement

and argues that federal immigration enforcement

cannot override anti-commandering principles.

He is skeptical of using immigration authority

as a pretext for broad domestic policing.

Erwin Kemerinsky, who is the dean of the UC Berkeley Law

School, is one of the most prominent constitutional scholars

in the US.

He has argued that immigration enforcement must still

respect federalism limits and individual constitutional rights

and frequently criticizes executive actions

that evade congressional checks or judicial oversight.

Other scholars focus on equal protection

and discriminatory enforcement, often linking ICE

practices to broader constitutional concerns.

Jennifer Shaqqon, who teaches at UC Berkeley,

has written extensively on immigration enforcement.

She is critical of executive-driven enforcement strategies

that lack transparency and accountability.

Kevin R. Johnson, who teaches at UC Davis,

is a former dean and immigration law scholar.

He is a longtime critic of immigration enforcement policies

that undermine equal protection and due process,

especially for lawful residents and citizens,

mistakenly targeted.

Let's do everything we can to ensure

that the rule of law and constitutional government is restored.

That is vastly more important than expelling illegal immigrants.

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