Don’t Let Dems Make Deporting Illegal Aliens Complicated

It’s useful, if unserious, for congressional Democrat leaders this week to have issued a list of demands in exchange for votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration law enforcement. The administration should see it as a reminder that the default position of Democrats is “pretend to support deporting illegal aliens while overcomplicating the process so as to render it impossible.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, published the demands in an open letter on Wednesday, detailing 10 things they say are needed to strike a deal on more DHS funding. “Federal immigration agents cannot continue to cause chaos in our cities,” the letter said, “while using taxpayer money that should be used to make life more affordable for working families.”

That line right there alone exposes Democrats as dishonest. They have no interest in “working families,” as literally every policy they champion, including open borders, is catastrophic for all of them. In any event, they went on to write that it was “critical” to “come together” for the purpose of agreeing on “common sense reforms” to ICE before Democrats would consent to more funding.

Admittedly, among the 10 proposals, a couple aren’t unreasonable, even if Democrats would surely poison-pill whatever legislation attempted to include them. The demands include body camera requirements, for example, which the administration has already initiated. But the bulk of them are explicitly intended to prevent as many illegal alien deportations as possible, starting with the first one, which insists that ICE agents “require verification that a person is not a U.S. citizen before holding them in immigration detention.”

Agents already ask for proof of legal residency before making arrests of unknown subjects — something Democrats oppose! Relatedly, another one of the demands is for ICE detention centers to “require immediate access to a person’s attorney.” Both ultimatums serve to reinforce Democrats’ favorite method of blocking deportations: endless judicial appeals. Behind every illegal alien’s judicial appeal is an army of pro bono lawyers funded by left-wing nonprofits whose sole purpose for existing is to keep as many foreigners in the U.S. as possible.

Also on the Democrat wish list are imperatives that ICE agents cease wearing masks and be forbidden from conducting operations near “sensitive locations,” including election centers — weird, I wonder why! — and courthouses. Both of those should be non-starters for any Republican in Congress with two brain cells.

The masks are only necessary because Democrat activists have made a sport out of hunting down ICE agents to harass and assault them in the streets and at their homes. Forcing their removal would only serve to make that easier. And the suggestion that law enforcement be forbidden from public legal facilities is preposterous. If an illegal alien can’t be immediately detained following a final court order for removal, there is no point to any of this.

But, of course, there is no point to any of this. Democrats aren’t serious about supporting any deportations.