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A political debate has been raging for days over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement-involved shooting in Minneapolis last week, with many leftists accusing the officer who discharged his weapon of committing “murder” or carrying out an “execution.” Some of these same critics initially amplified misinformation that the woman who was killed was not an activist, but rather a coincidental bystander who was merely in the vicinity to drop her child off. Wrong place, wrong time. Eyewitness testimony and video evidence quickly dispelled this lie, clearly proving that she was, in fact, a trained radical activist who’d spent a significant portion of that day stalking, harassing, and obstructing federal officers. While interfering with law enforcement operations is a crime, it is certainly not an on-the-spot capital offense, so the relevant question about her death is whether the officer who shot her was justified in doing so. I’ll ultimately defer to the results of the active investigation on that subject, as well as to the analyses of legal and law enforcement experts.
As a layperson, however, multiple camera angles depict the female driver throwing her SUV into drive, then accelerating into an officer, after being clearly instructed to get out of her vehicle. She struck him with her car. Simultaneously and instantaneously, he drew his weapon and fired, including a shot through the front windshield. She was fatally hit. It should go without saying, but often does not, that one should not obstruct federal law enforcement operations. One should not disobey lawful orders from officers. One should not attempt to drive away, also known as fleeing the scene, a felony, with officers in the immediate vicinity of one’s vehicle. One should especially not do so with an officer positioned in front of said vehicle. No one is in a position to definitively assert that the deceased woman intended to run over or kill the officer. The Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration labeling the incident “domestic terrorism” seemed premature at the time they did so, and it still does. The woman very well may have “only” been trying to flee, in contravention of lawful orders. That distinction is irrelevant to whether the officer reached a split-second, reasonable conclusion that his personal safety or life was in grave and immediate danger.
We’ll see what the federal review finds, and it is worth underscoring that this matter falls under federal jurisdiction. It’s fascinating to watch state and local officials indignantly demand that the feds cooperate with their separate investigations into the incident, given that the reason this ICE operation is underway in the first place is that state and local officials have implemented anti-cooperation directives vis-a-vis enforcement of federal immigration law. A woman has lost her life, so the particular details of this episode are important, of course, but it’s also essential to recall why ICE has “surged” into various cities and communities like this. Democrats’ reckless, lawless “sanctuary” policies broadly prevent the efficient and orderly behind-bars transfer of illegal immigrants into federal custody through the honoring of commonsense detainer requests lodged by ICE. This shields criminal illegal immigrants from accountability, entirely for purposes of political posturing, and forces the feds to pursue riskier street operations, which are often made more complicated and dangerous by extremist activists and the politicians who egg them on using incendiary, demonizing rhetoric.
Democratic politicians insist that ICE is not making the Minneapolis metro area any safer — in fact, quite the opposite, they say. They make this sort of claim routinely, as if it’s a self-evident truth. Wrong. During the current surge in that region, which DHS officials say started in November 2025, the agency has apprehended a wide array of extremely dangerous illegal immigrants with serious criminal convictions.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who is exceptionally well-sourced in the immigration enforcement realm, published a jaw-dropping report over the weekend highlighting just some of the people arrested during this ICE mission in Minnesota. Melugin called it “the most disturbing list I’ve ever seen,” which is notable, given his extensive, yearslong coverage of these issues. Per his sources, the partial roster includes:
- A Salvadoran illegal immigrant convicted of three counts of homicide, with a standing deportation order.
- An illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone who was convicted of two counts of homicide, also with a standing deportation order.
- Six illegal immigrants from Laos, all of whom were convicted of sexual crimes, ranging from child rape to sexual assault. All six had standing deportation orders against them.
- Another Laotian national, convicted of two counts of homicide with a deportation order.
- A man from Sudan, convicted of homicide.
- Another Sudanese illegal immigrant, convicted of attempted homicide, a weapons charge, and DUI.
- A Mexican national convicted of sexual assault against a child and DUI, with a standing deportation order against him.
- Another Mexican national convicted of homicide, with a previous deportation.
- Yet a third Mexican national convicted of homicide, with a deportation order.
- A Somali with a homicide conviction.
- Another Somali convicted of manslaughter, with a standing deportation order.
- One Guatemalan illegal immigrant convicted of negligent homicide with a vehicle and DUI, with a deportation order.
- A man from Burma, also convicted of negligent homicide.
Melugin concluded his report by noting that “ICE says all of these criminal aliens were roaming freely in the sanctuary state of Minnesota prior to arrest.” Note well that every single example cited above features an illegal immigrant — to repeat, someone who is unlawfully present inside the United States — who has also been convicted of extremely serious, violent crimes. Not accused. Not arrested. Convicted. Nearly all of them also face active deportation orders from U.S. courts. These are dangerous criminals who have violated both America’s sovereignty and additional criminal statutes, inflicting sexual harm or death on their U.S. victims. They have received every ounce of due process one could possibly expect. And yet, according to the DHS, they were walking free in a sanctuary jurisdiction, protected by politicians, and it fell to ICE to sweep them up.
Do craven, pandering demagogues such as Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey truly believe the greater metropolitan area is not made safer by virtue of the apprehension and removal of these felons? How can they possibly justify sheltering such people through their public policies? When Frey performatively seethes that ICE should “get the f*** out” of his city, is he comfortable that such an exit would come as a welcome gift to violent criminal illegal immigrants such as those the agency has taken off his city’s streets in recent weeks? Has he ever, even once, urged violent criminal illegal immigrants, or predatory fraudsters, for that matter, to “get the f*** out” of Minneapolis, or are such histrionics reserved for sworn federal officers enforcing duly enacted American laws?
DEMOCRATS’ ICE SHOOTING REACTION IS ALL ABOUT OPEN BORDERS
If elected Democrats actually oppose “chaos” in their streets, they should stop blaming ICE for doing its job in pursuit of the rule of law. They should instead take a hard look in the mirror, review lists such as the one furnished by Melugin, and abandon the insane, dangerous “sanctuary” policies that necessitate the sorts of raids and street operations that foment chaos. They should honor ICE detainers. They should stop vilifying ICE and ratcheting up their activists’ hysteria.
And at the very least, they should unequivocally exhort their base to cease interfering with and disrupting law enforcement activities, which put officers and civilians in entirely unnecessary peril. That so many elected Democrats continue to make opposite choices, even after numerous violent attacks against federal agents, and even after incidents like last week’s deadly shooting, is a disgraceful reflection on their priorities and agenda.
