Kansas Republicans muddy the waters on ICE enforcement

Cabaña Mexican Grill in Garden City, Kansas, temporarily closed last week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted operations across the southwestern part of the state.

In a bilingual Facebook post featuring a Mexican flag, the restaurant said, “ICE is in our community, and fear is spreading through the families who work hard every day to keep businesses like ours running.”

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do.

The post urged other businesses to stand with their employees: “People before profit. Community before business. Together.”

Kansas Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran responded by stressing coordination between federal agents and local law enforcement.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted to X. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

Marshall said he was closely following events and had been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and local authorities “as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe.”

Moran added that he had spoken with Mullin and stressed “the importance of DHS working with our local law enforcement to safely execute these warrants.”

He also relayed an assurance from Mullin that the warrants were “only for the purpose of arresting individuals who have been charged with criminal activities.”

Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton struck much the same note. He said immigration agents should focus on serious criminals, coordinate with local officials, and avoid leaving Kansas families afraid.

How strange that the Republicans and the Democrat should sound so similar, especially to voters who expect Republicans to offer an unapologetic defense of immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on carrying out what he called “the largest deportation operation in American history.” More than 77 million Americans voted for him, and he carried Kansas by 16 points.

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Yet when federal immigration agents arrived in Southwest Kansas, the state’s two Republican senators did not lead with a defense of the administration’s enforcement authority. They led with concerns about coordination, local knowledge, and public safety — language strikingly similar to Hamilton’s.

That distinction is worth getting right.

ICE routinely works with state and local law enforcement, including through its 287(g) partnerships. Asking federal agents to communicate with sheriffs and police is not, by itself, a sanctuary policy, nor does local government possess a veto over federal immigration enforcement.

The real question is what Moran and Marshall believe ICE should be enforcing.

ICE is not merely a federal version of a local police department. Immigration enforcement is itself at the core of its mission. Removal does not depend in every case on a separate violent-crime conviction.

When Moran and Marshall say that ICE should be focusing on public safety or illegal aliens charged with criminal activity, what they seem to mean is that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens should receive enforcement amnesty. That’s madness.

I don’t think it is even worth pointing out to either Republican senator that it is illegal for illegal aliens to work under the table in the United States, and usually that implicates other crimes, including identity theft and document fraud.

Logic cannot prevail when we are hearing Democratic talking points from the mouths of Republicans. This is particularly troubling at a time when some Democrats, including Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), are openly calling to abolish the Department of Homeland Security.

RELATED: The mass-deportation promise is disappearing

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Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do, particularly in areas that have been transformed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

Comments responding to a KSN story included blunt reactions: “The businesses hiring them should be fined and arrested,” “Sounds like they need to stay closed if they can’t hire Americans,” and from one Western Kansas resident, “I voted for this!!!”

Those comments are not a scientific sample of Kansas opinion, obviously. They are, however, a reminder of the constituency Republican politicians helped create when they spent years promising tougher immigration enforcement and failed to deliver.

Now that enforcement has arrived in Southwest Kansas, voters can see clearly how their elected officials respond.

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