How The Left Turned Minneapolis Into A Test Case For Nullifying Immigration Law

Alex Pretti died amid a breakdown of public order in Minneapolis, where local authorities — just as they did in 2020 — allowed unrest to steadily escalate without effective intervention.

It’s possible that in the chaotic melee of organized harassment, noise, and obstruction of federal agents by bodies and vehicles, a misfiring of Pretti’s gun led surrounding officers to believe he had fired and, in turn, to fire back. But the circumstances were there, day after day, that made this inevitable at some point. If not Pretti, then someone else.

Senior federal officials made assertions about Pretti’s intent before waiting for the full facts. Meanwhile, the national media instantly presented him as a hapless observer expressing his free speech rights, ruthlessly gunned down by out-of-control agents. A more complicated picture emerged later, with video of Pretti some days earlier spitting on a DHS car and kicking out the taillights. Independent reporting also revealed national funding and organization of the supposedly organic and local anti-ICE protests.

Politicians in Washington opportunistically pounced on this premise to attack DHS funding.

With the chaos on the ground, it’s easy to lose track of the big picture. The strategy of the Left, led by its most extreme activists but now supported by mainstream elected officials, is to neuter or end enforcement of immigration law inside the country.

Gone are the days of Bill Clinton, who signed a 1996 law that increased penalties for entering the United States illegally and made it easier to deport illegal aliens. Even Obama mostly accepted his duty to enforce United States immigration law, admitting that he couldn’t wave a magic wand and allow every illegal alien to stay.

Joe Biden’s presidency changed all that. Emboldened by their success under Obama with DACA and other measures to weaken enforcement, and unrestrained by Biden’s out-to-lunch management, Left-wing activists went to town.

Catch-and-release at the border, unlawful mass parole, and billions of taxpayer dollars to grease the machinery brought millions into the country over four years.

Back in office, Trump quickly shut down the open border. Things got stickier when it came to interior enforcement to carry out the deportations ordered by immigration judges after due process. In states where local law enforcement honored ICE detainers, criminal aliens could be picked up safely inside government facilities. In “sanctuary” jurisdictions — which include many major United States cities — it was extremely difficult.

The Trump administration chose to go in hard, with high-visibility arrests in resistant Democrat-run cities that energized his base voters but made uncomfortable viewing for many Americans who want law enforcement but don’t like seeing how it sometimes must be done.

The legacy media would have you believe that the Pretti shooting changed people’s minds in Washington and led Democrats to call for defunding ICE — and even some Republicans question continued funding without certain changes. But don’t be fooled — even before Minneapolis, immigration activists and the politicians they elected did not accept the deportation of any foreign national, whatever the law said or the courts decided.

If you asked the protesters in Minneapolis whether any alien should ever be deported from the United States, and if so, for what reasons, I doubt they would admit to any. “Abolitionists” on the Left want to end criminal justice as we know it, and that includes immigration law.

Minnesota politicians like Tim Walz and Jacob Frey speak of all migrants as “neighbors,” and “fellow Minnesotans,” as if those are attributes conveyed simply by physical, and not legal, presence. They do not accept a distinction between legal and illegal aliens.

Indeed, that is now the underlying philosophy of the “progressive” Left. They believe everyone should be allowed to enter the country and apply for asylum, and that even those unqualified should not be deported. They want all the “newcomers” to be able to tap into federal welfare programs. (And if they commit fraud to get benefits to which they are not entitled, we should go easy on them because to prosecute non-Europeans for crime is “racist” or “Islamophobic”).

In Minneapolis, hundreds of people, led by well-funded political activists, are deliberately pushing the envelope of free speech beyond protest into physical action.

What is their goal? It is not to be heard, because everyone knows their views. It is not to have a conversation, because they are aware that the tactical-level agents they confront have no authority to stop operations.

The goal is to intimidate the federal government to stop enforcing laws in Minneapolis — to nullify federal law. The physical confrontations are designed to provoke a reaction — ideally not lethal, but some photogenic verbal or violent response to elicit sympathy. Whistles, screaming, throwing objects, blocking roads, and insulting armed officers at close range are orchestrated mayhem with a purpose.

In Minneapolis, the tactics may have worked, for now. President Trump may have concluded that the political benefit of urban confrontations is outweighed by the risk of defections from vulnerable Republicans and the alienation of swing voters marinating in mainstream media.

Political reality often outweighs objective truth and black-letter law. Trump’s border has been a massive success. And while the battle over interior enforcement isn’t over, in Minneapolis, the open-borders Left won a skirmish.

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Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and author of “The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey)” from Academica Books.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.