This is really the crux of it all, isn't it: Democratic leaders consider the enforcement of applicable immigration law to be fundamentally illegitimate and outright refuse to acknowledge that the Trump administration has a popular mandate to follow through.
They feel emboldened and morally justified in their sanctuary policies and the obstruction and harassment of ICE agents. And their defiant stance is of course compounded by the fact that weak Republican leaders, at the behest of their donors and business interests, had willfully turned a blind eye to mass illegal immigration for decades and only paid lip service to securing the border or interior enforcement. Now, the Trump admin is left with a mess and has to take a big PR hit if it wants to rip this band-aid off.
There is an obvious sane middle ground, but we've seen the utter maximalist demands from MN leaders in both shootings and the kneejerk reactionary response from the feds
Walz and Frey immediately come out and say the person was murdered and did no wrong and the DHS narrative is bullshit and demand ICE fully withdraw from MN borders and I dunno, have Barron Trump sent to st paul as a hostage and pay an annual tithe. Kristi Noem comes out immediately and says the domestic terrorist was trying to inflict maximum possible damage and had to be put down like a misbehaving puppy. Where is the room for sane criticism like, "Maybe ICE should try to pursue more deconfliction and have MPD coordinate to keep people safe and a rapid surge is being carried out recklessly when more time could be spent strategizing and being surgical"
Yeah, we have a festering wound in our illegal immigration but neither ripping the bandaid off as roughly as possible nor giving the limb up to the rot are the ideal procedure. Most americans agree with debriding the necrotic skin of this now very stretched metaphor, be they criminal illegal aliens.
But instead of a debate of sensible procedures we're having a debate where leftists are now unironically cheering on the guy who bit someone's finger off
2026 off to a banger of a start