In recent weeks an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., which has become the West Coast epicenter of Trump Derangement Syndrome, came under siege by far-Left “Occupy ICE” demonstrators who set up a ramshackle tent city in an adjacent parking lot.
The protesters blocked ICE employees from entering the facility for more than 30 days before federal police, dispatched to open the facility, cleared demonstrators out and began securing the premises.
But a number of ICE employees have since reported being harassed and threatened with physical violence for which they called the Portland Police Bureau to lodge complaints. But cops never showed up to take their reports.
Why? Because the department was ordered to stand down by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was quoted as saying by local media in June, “I do not want the Portland Police to be engaged or sucked into a conflict.”
“The policy being enacted by the federal government around the separation of very small children from their parents is an abomination," Wheeler tweeted. "I want to be very clear I do not want the @PortlandPolice to be engaged or sucked into a conflict, particularly from a federal agency that I believe is on the wrong track, that has not fully lived American values of inclusion and is also an agency where the former head suggested that people who lead cities that are sanctuary cities like this one should be arrested.”
That’s exactly what should happen: Officials who protect and defend illegal alien criminals (and they are criminals by virtue of sneaking into the country illegally) and setting up “sanctuary cities” should be held legally accountable, even if voters back such policies.
Federal law – which supersedes state and local laws because of the Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause” – are clear on immigration. That previous administrations didn’t fully enforce them was a choice of the president at the time.
Constitutional violation
POTUS Trump campaigned specifically on enforcing all immigration laws and has been attempting to do so. It doesn’t matter whether local officials agree with that enforcement – or the president’s overall immigration policies – or not. Compliance is not supposed to be voluntary. (Related: Trump WARNS lawless Oakland mayor: She’s ‘protecting criminals’ and ‘we’re looking at responses.’)
As for the ordering of his department to stand down, a letter from attorney Sean Riddell to Wheeler accuses the mayor of violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“Your current policy forbidding Portland law enforcement agencies from assisting employees of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency who request law enforcement assistance while at or away from work is a violation of the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause,” the letter states, as The National Sentinel reported.
“We understand that you have a difference of opinion with the current President of the United States, and some of his policies, but we fail to see why targeting the employees of ICE and leaving them vulnerable to violence, harassment and even death furthers a legitimate government interest,” Riddell wrote, adding that refusing to allow local police to protect ICE employees “created a zone of terror and lawlessness.”
For years cities have been ignoring federal immigration law by creating sanctuary cities. Now local officials like Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Philadelphia Mayor Kenney, both Democrats, are going further: They are openly thwarting federal law enforcement efforts to locate, arrest, and deport anyone in the country illegally.
They are looking at illegal immigration the way Abolitionists viewed slavery in the 18thcentury. The two have nothing in common but if the Left continues to thumb its nose at the Trump administration over this issue, there’s a major showdown coming, and soon.
Read more about rising civil discourse and conflict over this issue at CivilWar.news.
J.D. Heyes is editor of The National Sentinel and a senior writer for Natural News and News Target.
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