And If The ICE Should Break.

What are the consequences of not winning the deportation battle.

This article was originally published with some other thoughts in two parts by The Conservative Woman (TCW) an independent, British based online news and politics magazine. TCW are the only media outlet currently supporting my work. If you can check them out and haven’t done so yet, please do so.

I have written a lot on ICE (7 articles total in TCW, and other pieces and glancing comments here and on social media). Unless something significant and new develops this might be my last word on the topic, but I hope people aren’t bored of it. The reason I keep returning to it is I think that immigration, deportation and the Great Replacement is the most fundamental issue of all, to which every other issue is linked.

The border holds or the nation folds. It’s that simple.

So here are thoughts I shared in TCW. Part of it is a retrospective, but all of it is I think important:

When the second term started President Trump faced a bleak reality. During the Biden term the federal government and a network of NGOs, charities and Democrat linked organisations, including churches, had deliberately opened the borders and encouraged mass illegal immigration into the US. The border was not being defended. It was being subverted, in a completely planned and conscious manner.

This was so much the case that Republican State administrations that tried to protect the border were subject to legal threat from the Biden administration. In January 2024, when Texas Governor Gregg Abbott tried to use State assets to defend the border (such as the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Guard) in response to the federal government’s failure to do so, organisations like Human Rights Watch condemned the move and the federal government issued a formal warning to Texas. The legal right of Texan authorities to defend their territorial integrity, backed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and by Texas Senate Bill 4 (SB4) was hit with an immediate injunction by a federal judge as well as by a coordinated media smear campaign blaming Texas for three migrant deaths when thousands of people in huge convoys were flooding over the border.

Up to 20 million illegal aliens entered the US in just four years of the Biden term. Even for a country as large and rich as the US is, this was a devastating influx bringing with it increased crime, alienation, public disorder and social breakdown and fuelling the growth of slums and tent cities in places that encouraged and welcomed the migrant invasion. Minnesota, which today serves as an anti ICE and anti immigration enforcement hotspot, was one of the main ‘refugee’ welcome sites, with just 2% of the overall US population but 13% of its total refugee population. A notable Somalian settlement region, electing representatives like Ilhan Omar, Minnesota showed too the vast fraud which is intimately connected to both the behaviour of specific immigrant groups and the Democrat support for open borders, with estimates now ranging up to 20 billion US dollars of US taxpayer money stolen by various Somali fraud schemes in the Democrat run State.

Multiple Democrat run areas declared themselves to be ‘sanctuary cities’, actively opposing existing US federal law, astonishingly with the complicity and support of the Biden administration and the mainstream media while doing so. Even before the second Trump term the precedent had been established, particularly on immigration and border policy, that Democrat cities and States could actively flout the existing US legal code and the laws designed to protect both national security and the public safety of existing citizens.

At Trump’s second term inauguration, too, the manner in which border law and immigration law had been deliberately abandoned, partly because ‘supporting refugees’ became a very lucrative income stream of funds diverted from legitimate services for US citizens, was illustrated when the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, Bishop Marian Edgar Budd, turned a solemn moment of transition that required dignity and unity, into a personal and political attack on the newly elected President.

Budd condemned second term immigration policy before it had even commenced, but the really relevant part of that condemnation was the subsequent revelation from The Gateway Pundit and the Center for Immigration Studies that the Episcopal Migration Ministries organisation, the federal contracting arm of the Episcopal Church under Budd’s control, had received 53 million US dollars in taxpayer funds in 2023 alone, via federal bodies such as the US Refugees Admissions Programme.

In other words Budd’s moral condemnation was actually the self interested declaration of someone whose organisation was receiving massive amounts of money dependent on the stance on immigration she delivered, and in close alignment with the prior Biden administration.

This then was the background as well as the situation Trump and his administration faced as they settled into office. 20 million people with no right to be in the country had been welcomed in four years. Details on the vast majority of these people were unknown and had never been pursued. Democrat administrations at the city and State level had profited from this influx, together with a network of charities, churches and pressure groups, even as ordinary, existing US citizens suffered. The border was completely open. Border agencies were demoralised by catch and release policies that made their efforts pointless. Trump first term border protections including border wall infrastructure had been deliberately allowed to degenerate, rust away, or were even purposefully destroyed and sold off.

Due to the level of criminal complicity in the opening of the border by the prior administration, the situation was worse than it had ever been. And Trump was elected partly because of that, with many voters in border States particularly aware of the scale of the problem. With that electoral pledge to solve this deliberately inflicted disaster in mind, the only possible solution comes from deportations. ICE had to do the job they were created to do, and had to do it even more urgently than normal given the vast numbers of people who had been let in. And of course the border had to be secured to prevent further waves of mass migration.

On the second of these two points, the administration secured remarkable success relatively swiftly, soon presiding over a more than 90% drop in illegal border crossings. In terms of preventing further invasions and migrant convoys, much of what is needed comes simply from declaring an intent to defend the border and using existing resources to do it. In every nation that does this (whether the US, or Poland or Hungary in Europe) borders can actually be swiftly secured. The flow of mass migration stops whenever it is actively opposed, a lesson which gives the lie to the idea that all migrants are innocent refugees fleeing to other nations because they have to do so in order to survive. The number who decide not to come, when any preventative measures exist, suggests (just as increases in arrivals during weak policing of borders) this is more often a choice than a necessity. The corollary of that too is that mass immigration is a choice from authorities who do nothing effective about it.

It is not impossible to police a border effectively.

The problem for the 2nd term on these issues has come not from making sure the borders are secure, but from dealing with the aftermath of the period when they were not secure. It’s deporting people who have no right to remain that is automatically a huge and difficult logistical task, and a task rendered near impossible at times by judicial lawfare and judicial activism against these measures, by rampant stochastic terrorism and demonisation of border and immigration agencies in the media, and by the same established networks of corruption pivoting directly from welcoming migrants to encouraging violent attacks on ICE agents under the euphemistic description of ‘protest’.

All the organisational infrastructure of an insurgency against federal authority had been deliberately grown during the prior federal admimistration, with the precedent already set that Democrats can choose to ignore the law on immigration and profit (in both immigrant votes and financially) from doing so. Just as deportations are the only possible solution to 20 million illegal aliens being in your country, it was also the case that the people who let that happen would be prepared to engage in any manner of extremism to prevent it being corrected, which is exactly what we have seen in Minnesota.

What they moved to was the encouragement of domestic terrorism, and sadly it’s been working. Domestically, this was the greatest test of the will not just of the Trump administration on this issue, but of the Right generally throughout the western world. It’s an issue where Trump himself is crystal clear on the consequences of failure, having stated multiple times in advice to other western leaders that a nation without borders ceases to exist as a nation. The National Security Assessment warned that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” thanks to open borders and mass immigration. Trump said that “without borders, we don’t have a country” fully 7 years ago and has repeated this same corrext assessment ever since, including in his relatively recent address to the UN.

Trump is completely correct in that assessment. And such an assessment needs an agency like ICE deporting illegal immigrants. But in the face of media and Democrat encouragement of violence and uprising, and in the face of insurgency and terrorist tactics I’ve referenced in prior articles for TCW, Trump has publicly at least seemed to back down.

The withdrawal of 700 ICE agents from Minnesota, and a public statement from Trump that a ‘softer’ approach is required, is an utterly disastrous move, precisely because it is on this issue that the lies from the media have been heaviest, and it is on this issue thar the criminality of serving Democrat politicians has been most obvious. It’s an issue where even the appearance of losing becomes devastating, rather like the moment in an ancient battle when, of two clashing armies, one decides collectively that it cannot win. That decision can lead to a rout, in modern politics as much as in ancient warfare, and that decision is built as much by impressions as realities.

In other words, the thought that, say, your left wing has collapsed, can create the reality of it happening, by inspiring panic and by causing people to turn and flee.

The reality on the ground may be more complex than the idea that Trump has lost his nerve. It may be a reaction to negative polling, and it may be influenced by thoughts on the urgency of foreign threats also being faced, or by the context of approaching midterms. Trump is also of course not the dictator his hysterical and dishonest opponents portray him as being, and must work within the constraints of what brittle and notoriously weak Republican Senators and Congressmen will accept without wetting their pants. It has also been said that deportations are continuing and that Governor Walz has been forced to turn State resources to the task and State police are now doing some of the necessary work in support of ICE arrests and deportations.

All this may be true, but the problem is that this is one area (unlike mean tweets and criticisms regarding etiquette and diplomatic norms) where appearances matter. The appearance of rudeness is a triviality, and things like constantly invented and absurd charges of racism have long been factored in as a standard dishonesty (playing the race card) by most voters ever likely to vote Republican. But the appearance OR reality of defeat on ICE and deportations is hugely damaging.

And here is why. Trump himself has acknowledged that this is a fundamental issue. He knows it’s an issue that defines whether a nation is real, let alone whether a nation is successful or great. It’s the issue that matters most to those who hate populist or patriotic or rightwing governance, and it’s the issue that matters most too to those who desperately want and support populist or patriotic or rightwing governance. It might be said to be the hinge issue that opens and closes the Overton Window, rather than shifting it a few degrees left or right. By that I mean that if you let domestic terrorism on ICE even appear to win, you present a damaging version of the old Broken Window theory. Just as seeing a broken window (a minor crime unpunished) suggests an area in decline, so too does going soft on this issue suggest a much more fundamental and pervasive defeat than just a shift in the presentation of a single policy.

When Giuliani and NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton saved New York from the crime and squalor of the 1970s (a place it is now returning to, and then some) they did it by realising that the appearance of giving in to low level criminality exponentially increased crime, whereas the appearance of order created order. People, even and sometimes especially criminals, are social animals and tend towards doing what they see around them. If it’s normal to break windows and they see that, they will do the same. If crime isn’t publicly seen to be responded to, you get more crime. This is remarkably obvious but it applies ten times more to policing the border and enforcing immigration law than it does to street crime.

Instead of telling some kid they can get away with breaking windows or some low level punk that they can get away with mugging old ladies in daylight, you are telling people they can get away with open defiance of your entire government, existing federal law, the results of an election, the policies most important to you and your followers, and crimes up to and including terrorism aimed against federal agencies.

You cannot base your reputation on being the guy who will finally defend the borders and who is strong enough to face down those who hate your nation or hate sensible policies and then give the appearance of weakness on the most fundamental issue of all that defines whether or not you have a meaningful nation. Both in terms of defiance of federal authority and in terms of how much people need to be protected from the insane influx of the Biden years, the demoralisation effect of backing off on this is a much bigger problem than powering on would be (a lesson the Right always gets wrong when faced with hysterical opposition).

The bad guys are emboldened, and the good guys are disappointed.

Interestingly, though, there are growing signs that the police themselves have had enough of Democrat sponsored and backed public disorder and crime, particularly when it targets them or sets them against other officers. In American Liberty on the 3rd February we saw a pushback on anti ICE policies proposed by the Mayor of Seattle:

“The president of the union representing Seattle police said Friday that he will not allow officers to carry out what he described as a ludicrous directive from Democratic Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson involving federal immigration enforcement.

Wilson issued orders directing Seattle police to “investigate, verify, and document” activities carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for potential prosecution, according to Fox 13 Seattle. The directive mirrors similar actions taken by Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago. Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Mike Solan responded publicly to the order in a post on X.

“Toothless virtue signaling rhetoric like this has already cost two people their lives,” Solan wrote, referencing the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area during immigration enforcement operations. “The concept of pitting two armed law enforcement agencies against each other is ludicrous, and will not happen. I will not allow SPOG members to be used as political pawns.”

(Seattle Police Union President Rejects Mayor’s Anti ICE Order, American Liberty).

Two days after those comments, Mike Solan was forced to step down as the head of the Seattle police union, a clear indication of just how serious the effects of not fully confronting Democrat sponsorship of crime has become. The terrible truth is that people like the Mayor of Seattle are borderline domestic terrorists….but they aren’t toothless ones.

Police who support the law and other officers are forced to resign by Democrat politicians openly assigning one police agency to work with activists and domestic terrorists against federal immigration officers.

Without borders or laws that Democrats are accountable to, what does it actually mean for a populist Republican to win the Presidency? That’s how crucial this is. Because just as you don’t have a nation without borders, you don’t really have a President if people can incite terrorism against his key policy and get away with it and if good cops can’t even head a Union if they oppose Democrat Governors and Mayors acting in ways that would make a Mafia blush.

This battle is the most important one of all, which threatens to make all the foreign policy triumphs and all the good economic sense somewhat redundant. If you can’t deport criminals and they can incite criminals, if the law can’t be applied by you and can be ignored or even appropriated by them, then no rightwing policy is possible anymore.

And that’s not a broken window. It’s a broken nation.