Whether you call it a pivot, course correction or de-escalation, it is a hopeful sign that President Trump is trying to lower the temperature in Minneapolis.
His conciliatory phone calls to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey following the deaths of two protesters demonstrate a desire for cooperation instead of violent confrontation.
Similarly, by sending border czar Tom Homan to meet with Walz and making ICE leadership moves, the president is showing he realizes the current state of affairs is dangerously combustible.
At the same time, Trump’s willingness to compromise on tactics, tone and optics should not be misinterpreted as a surrender on principles.
If he did that, an important pillar of federal law enforcement power would be squandered and his presidency would be seriously damaged by a defection of supporters.
Trump’s pledge to enforce immigration law was a key component of his winning agenda in 2024 and offered a compelling contrast with his Dem opponents.
That distinction remains crucial because it lies at the heart of the Minneapolis mayhem, and offers a roadmap showing how we got to this dizzying moment, where so many people apparently believe immigration enforcement is optional and cruel.
Main problem is Joe’s
The main problem was and remains Joe Biden’s open border policy, which allowed upwards of as many as 15 million unvetted migrants to come to America in just four years.
Recall that he made his vice president, Kamala Harris, border czar, and she promptly disappeared without trying to make even modest improvements in the disastrous status quo.
That she continued to defend the administration’s approach after she replaced Biden on the ticket was among the mistakes that justifiably returned her to private life.
As with other problems of its own making, the Biden White House was shielded from the political consequences of its border actions by a legacy media that acted as a protection racket.
A chorus of outlets automatically declared anyone a bigot who dared to criticize the nonstop caravans of foreign newcomers and their potential impact on America.
Except for reports in The Post and a few other places, most media were silent about the fact that Biden’s team was secretly sending planes to Central America to pick up illegals and fly them unannounced into cities and states around the nation.
That was only one aspect of a tsunami that often played out in darkness because leftist outlets betrayed their responsibility to inform the public of what was happening.
Among the facts they found too inconvenient to report was that American citizens were being killed and otherwise victimized by illegal immigrants.
Just as they ignored Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline, they saw no reason for concern over the bloody consequences of an open border.
Reality of the border
Had the Biden White House and its media lapdogs been even half-awake and half-honest, they would have realized the vast numbers of people coming across the border were not limited to bedraggled souls merely seeking a better life.
Mixed among them were numerous violent criminals, drug and sex traffickers and gang members. Trump’s intense focus on several horrendous murders carried out by illegal crossers spotlighted outrages that most on the left simply ignored.
Just last November, the Trump White House announced that “450,000 unaccompanied children were illegally smuggled over the border and placed with unvetted sponsors under the Biden administration.”
The announcement was met mostly with silence from Dems, including the likes of AOC and others on the left who couch their support for illegal immigration as being good for women and children.
Part of their defense is the mindless repetition that America is a nation of immigrants.
Yes — but the Biden-Harris wave of newcomers was so vast that there is no comparison in our history.
For example, 12 million immigrants arrived legally in the United States between 1870 and 1900.
That first great wave of immigrants, mostly from Europe, was more easily absorbed over three decades in a vast country where the entire population in 1900 was about 75 million.
This time, with a similar number ushered in over a mere four years, there is obviously a far greater burden in dollars, crime and social upheaval.
New York City alone spent more than $7 billion — and counting — to house, feed, care for and educate some 200,000 of Biden’s migrants.
That money is gone forever, and the vast majority of people and businesses whose taxes made that spending possible got zero benefit from it.
Additional concerns about the river of people allowed in still pile up: driver’s licenses are being granted in some states to people who cannot read road signs in English, and Dems in some cities want illegal aliens to be able to vote in local elections.
It doesn’t make you paranoid to believe they would also like them to vote in city, state and federal elections.
It’s relevant to the Minnesota situation to remember that nearly all Democrats in public office reflexively defended the open border, and most continue to protect illegal arrivals with declarations of sanctuary states and cities.
The refusal to cooperate with federal authorities is a point of pride in blue cities and states.
The Boston Globe reports that city officials there turned down every request from the feds to detain alien criminals eligible for deportation.
Honor ICE detainers
The aim of ICE-detainer requests is to stop inmate releases until the feds can take custody and begin the deportation process.
Once inmates are released, ICE officials are tasked with finding and seizing them again.
Any deal Trump makes with Walz must include a commitment to turn over criminal aliens for possible deportation.
That would mark a big change for Walz who, in demonizing ICE, talks and acts like a modern-day secessionist bellowing about states’ rights.
He has called ICE agents “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo,” and compared the conditions facing immigrant children in Minneapolis to those Anne Frank faced during the Holocaust.
The disgraceful comparison is par for the radical left, which has been calling Trump Hitler and a fascist for years.
Their language has consequences, with rioters across the country attacking ICE agents and, in Minneapolis, storming and trashing their hotel.
Assaults and threats
Homeland Security says its enforcement efforts have led to staggering increases in assaults, threats and incitement against federal agents.
The rabid atmosphere includes examples of restaurants and hotels refusing to serve federal agents.
Most appalling, some doctors and nurses have reportedly refused to treat agents injured while trying to enforce the law.
On Tuesday, Virginia Commonwealth University told Fox News it has suspended a nurse who made three social media videos urging colleagues to inject any federal agents they treat with an anesthetic that causes muscle paralysis for up to six minutes.
If this isn’t an insurrection, what is it?
This story originally appeared on NYPost
