Conservatives who supported Donald Trump primarily because of his pledge to conduct large-scale deportations of illegal aliens had a bit of a scare this week.
An illegal alien from Mexico was fatally shot last week by ICE immigration enforcement officers after he “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.” Another illegal alien, this one from Colombia, was fatally shot this week after he attempted to flee from ICE agents in his vehicle. Both incidents took place during legal, targeted vehicle stops by agents. These types of stops are relatively routine in ICE’s immigration enforcement mission and have been relatively uncontroversial — until now.
In response to an uproar by the usual suspects on the left and the reliably spineless on the right, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered ICE agents to cease most vehicle stops nationwide on Tuesday. According to multiple sources within ICE who spoke to Fox News and the Daily Wire, agents on the ground were frustrated by the directive, lamenting that it would cause a crash in arrests.
The decision was met with almost immediate backlash on the right, fearing that this represented another instance of the administration caving to the left on immigration after the retreat from Minneapolis earlier this year. The administration almost immediately began to backtrack. Border czar Tom Homan went on Fox News to assure audiences that the order was “a short term pause, a short term review” that would not affect arrest numbers. He also mentioned that ICE agents receive “extensive” vehicle stop training.
But, on Wednesday, the White House told Fox News that President Donald Trump had reversed the order on traffic stops. Trump also posted on Truth Social that:
The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.
Now, reports have surfaced that DHS will require at least one person on an ICE team to wear a bodycam in order to conduct a traffic stop. Not ideal, but not a great impediment to enforcement in the grand scheme of things.
All’s well that ends well, right?
Well, there’s still the problem of millions, probably tens of millions, of illegal aliens still in this country and the even bigger problem of this administration’s haphazard attempts to deal with that fact. While traffic stops may be one of the most common and effective methods of catching illegal aliens, it’s simply not enough to deal with the sheer number of illegals residing in the country.
Instead of backing down and instead of continuing on with business as usual, the Trump administration needs to take this opportunity to escalate its deportation methods. It needs to begin rounding up illegals en masse by targeting employers of illegal aliens and conducting large-scale raids on known illegal alien neighborhoods. That’s the only way to achieve true mass deportations in a timely manner and fulfill one of Trump’s central campaign promises.