President Trump may be as used to the hot seat as he is to a weekend in Mar-a-Lago, but the furor over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) feels different. In the days since Minnesota protestor Alex Pretti’s death, it’s become clear that the White House isn’t just facing outrage on its left, it’s facing a reckoning on its right.
The warning signs were blinking on the administration’s dashboard long before Renee Good was shot this month in Minneapolis. For months, immigration, the issue that almost certainly sealed the presidency for Trump, is suddenly where the White House is most vulnerable. While Americans have been largely united in their desire to see people sent home who streamed into our country illegally under Joe Biden, most never expected the disruptive tactics Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem oversaw.
Before the Pretti incident, Trump was already underwater on his signature agenda in the polls. Now, with this second fatal clash in the same month, even the president’s base is struggling to understand the aggressive nature of these big-city operations. According to a new YouGov/Economist poll, the number of Republicans who have “very little” confidence in ICE doubled this week, from 8% to 16%. And while 60% of GOP voters are still willing to give the institution the benefit of the doubt, that trust has eroded almost 10 points in two weeks.
Most Republican leaders, who stood by Trump and his Homeland Security team after the Good confrontation, have started to peel off, openly expressing concern about the altercation with Pretti, which seems much less cut and dry. Longtime conservatives like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) are defending the late nurse’s ability to legally carry a gun, as others demand an investigation and call for an overhaul of ICE protocol. Some, like Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and outgoing Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), are joining the Left’s calls to fire Noem, while Republicans like Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) try to see both sides of a very complicated storyline.
“First of all,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” “I understand the deaths in Minnesota are tragedies that never should have happened. But again, the deaths of people like Laken Riley and the many, many, many, many victims of crimes from individuals who came to this country illegally never should have happened as well,” he pointed out. “So this is a mess created by the Biden administration [and] the Democrats’ open border policy. President Trump was elected to clean up this mess,” Johnson said, before adding, “It’s not an easy thing to do. And it’s even more difficult when you have governors and mayors in Minnesota [who] are inciting people to obstruct and create violence against federal law enforcement agencies.”
In Johnson’s opinion, “That’s what caused this. … [W]e have these tragedies because the officials in Minnesota did not [help ICE do its job]. Hopefully, they come to their senses and start working with President Trump and his administration.”
To his credit, Trump backed off the bravado he usually uses to deflect criticism and shifted his messaging to a much more thoughtful and receptive tone. On Tuesday, he called the deaths of Good and Pretti “terrible.” “I hate to see it,” he said before vowing to “de-escalate a little bit.”
Internally, though, conservatives are hoping for more substantive change. Without it, Republicans — already anxious about a bloodbath in November — worry that the base’s frustrations will not only dampen turnout, but also threaten the party’s historic inroads with the Hispanic community.
Those cracks are already starting to show, first in the Miami mayoral election that Republicans lost, and later in growing pushback from local faith leaders who’ve seen the fear grip and fracture their congregations. On Tuesday, the National Hispanic Pastors Alliance decided to weigh in with an open statement reiterating its support for legal immigration, but expressing “growing concern” over “the enforcement and implementation of immigration laws by government agencies across the United States. Recent actions have had traumatic effects on children and families, creating widespread fear in our communities.”
“Immigration laws must be enforced in a way that protects the country while preserving order, due process, and the dignity of every person,” the alliance, which represents faith leaders, pastors, and Hispanic communities, insisted. “At the same time, in a constitutional republic, how laws are enforced is as important as the laws themselves. No policy objective — however well-intended — should place the fundamental civil liberties of U.S. citizens or lawful residents at risk, nor should it create fear within communities or erode public trust in government institutions.”
The group went on, “NAHPA is deeply concerned that certain enforcement practices appear to stretch, and in some cases infringe upon, the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and lawful residents, including due process protections guaranteed under the Constitution. Reports of overly aggressive tactics raise serious questions about proportionality, legality, and public safety.” They close with gratitude for what the administration is doing to address illegal immigration, but call for both justice and mercy to be served.
Carlos Duran, the founder and president of NAHPA, wanted to reiterate to Perkins on Tuesday that he doesn’t support illegal immigration. “And I’ll go further than that. I think the Hispanic community at large do[es] not support illegal immigration. They actually voted, 45% of them, for President Trump.” And the reality is, he acknowledged, “Trump was elected with an agenda to deal with the illegal immigration and the criminals. So I think that, at large, the Hispanic community understand[s] that we have a problem with illegal immigration, and we do want a solution to it.”
But as much as Duran supports law and order, he sees the impact that this confrontational approach has on his community. “We work with churches across the country. And when parents are afraid of sending their kids to school, when they’re afraid to go to work, when our churches are empty because parents and families are afraid to go to church, there is a big issue, and fear is in our community,” he explained. “… We need to show restraint, and we need to understand that we are not just going after the criminals, but actually the whole community is being traumatized at this point,” and not just Hispanics, he said, but other ethnic groups. “This is a problem that is eroding, at a certain point, our trust in our government entities and authorities. And I think in trying to enforce the law, we’re actually destroying the trust in our government entities that help us hold these communities together.”
That anxiety, Carlos added, is spreading to people who are here legally. “My son, he actually looks white,” Duran said. “He doesn’t look Hispanic. He calls me up. He’s an engineer in a very big company in the United States. And he says to me, ‘I’m going around with my passport, because I’m concerned they’re going to stop me.’ And he’s an American citizen born in the United States. So this is just one of many examples. This is across the country. We are afraid to get on a plane, to be honest with you. And I’m telling you in my personal testimony.”
Perkins nodded, sharing that he’d been fielding calls from lots of non-Hispanic pastors, who are watching this “dragnet” sweep up members of their congregation who haven’t done anything wrong. “It eventually works out. But if you’re detained and you’re not able to go to work or your family doesn’t know what happened to you, it becomes problematic [and], quite frankly, is not healthy.”
The reality is, Carlos pressed, “We have to address the real issues that the immigration system is broken and that the immigration issue [has] been weaponized by individuals, by agendas, and by political parties. And it’s not convenient for any of them to find a solution, because it actually divides us,” he underscored. “And so, I think it’s time for us to stop marching, to stop complaining, and [to] actually hold our elected officials accountable. [W]e need a solution to this problem that is actually affecting our communities, our churches, and our system.” But more immediately, he added, “I think that these midterm elections, if we do not message this differently, we have a problem.”
A growing number of evangelicals seem to agree, as voices like Erick Erickson and others weigh in with words of caution for the Trump administration. Regardless of who was right or wrong in these instances — and there’s plenty of blame to go around on both sides — the current situation is untenable. As FRC’s Casey Harper pointed out to The Washington Stand, “Republicans are unnecessarily playing right into what Democrats are accusing them of. We don’t need guys in masks breaking down people’s doors to take American citizens out of their homes,” he argued. “It’s a rights issue and an optics issue.” Frankly, he said, “This is what people think of when they think of fascism. It confirms their worst fears.”
At the end of the day, Harper emphasized, ICE has been deporting people for a long time without going to these extremes, “so I don’t know why they’re resorting to it now. We have an organized way of deporting people. You don’t have to break down doors.”
He’s right — it’s not necessary. It’s also not efficient. If anything, it slows down the process of getting violent criminals off the streets and out of America. When agents are trying to navigate thousands of rioting people, or the president has to hold daily press conferences about the unavoidable clashes that happen inside these powder kegs, no one benefits. It’s certainly not fair to ICE agents, most of whom are good people who are just following orders and trying to serve their country. Instead, they’re painted as villains on a global stage and set up to fail by the people who deployed them.
That’s not to say they can do no wrong, as Dr. Albert Mohler was quick to recognize. “It is to say that when you have activists, they’re confronting these agents, trying to create a situation of maximum confusion, well, if you create a situation of maximum confusion with law enforcement agents who are there with the full force of the federal government, and also if you present any kind of danger or any kind of threat, I think there should be no surprise that this will end very, very badly.”
No one is suggesting that the president back off of his core commitment to enforce the law, but in this instance, the methods matter as much as the measurables.
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