The dedicated personnel of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are following and enforcing federal immigration law to protect our borders, national security, prosperity, and domestic tranquility. Yet they are not just finding and apprehending dangerous criminals and facilitating their deportation.

In fact, ICE is urgently locating and rescuing thousands of missing and exploited children whom the Biden administration unconscionably allowed to enter this country and remain trapped in the clutches of their captors.

While our fellow Americans of ICE likely never expected thanks, they surely never expected this:

The latest spate of the left’s mendacious political messaging and virtue signaling is to claim the Trump administration, in general, and ICE, in particular, have inhumanely detained and deported illegal immigrants.

Note that the left is not claiming ICE agents are acting illegally. If true, that would then require civil and criminal proceedings at the state and federal level, investigations, evidence, and—by the way—actual illegal acts. Hence, instead of illegal, Democrats say “inhumane.” Of course, the absence of such criminality has posed a problem for the left, but evidently not an insurmountable one. Democrats endeavor to manufacture new political crimes to ensnare ICE agents, all the while ignoring the crimes committed against ICE agents.

Applying the abjectly wrong lesson from having falsely accused Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) of whipping Haitians, instead of ceasing such slanders, the Democrats just stopped being specific. Thus, in the same manner in which the left used the ominous-sounding but legally vacuous word “collusion” to color Donald Trump a Kremlin asset and undermine a duly elected president and the nation’s democracy, the Democrats use the nebulous and subjective “inhumane” to slander ICE agents, not the concrete and objective “illegal.” Moreover, to exacerbate the injustice, as the Democrats do with President Trump, MAGA, the GOP, and anyone who disagrees with them, these feckless leftists have added their rote accusation of “Nazi” and “Gestapo-like” tactics into their vile mix of vitriol targeted at ICE agents.

In addition to such baseless calumnies, the Democrats have aimed to match their words with their misdeeds. To date, Democrats have engaged in often less than peaceful marches, protests, and demonstrations; deliberately interfered with the duties of ICE agents; and some deep blue municipalities have even pondered evicting ICE agents from their local offices.

The Democrats’ baseless and invidious verbal abuse, physical harassment, and obstruction of ICE agents have had an unconscionable but easily foreseen impact. Per Breitbart:

Assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have skyrocketed since January amid left-wing attacks from anarchist groups and elected Democrats.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials reveal that ICE agents are now facing a nearly 700-percent increase in assaults as they try to arrest illegal aliens…

At the same time, Antifa-affiliated groups, according to DHS officials, have started targeting ICE agents and their families—posting identifying information about them online, including their home addresses…

The Portland, Oregon-based group Rose City Counter-Info, as well as the Crustian Daily, have published the names, photos, and personal home addresses of ICE agents on their website in an attempt to get left-wing activists to target agents.

In state houses, in Congress, and in the face of the orchestrated and escalating violence against ICE agents, Democrats have made their stand. They stand beside the lawless who are committing the attacks—yes, the party that did not particularly care who illegally entered the country wants to make sure everyone knows where to find ICE agents—including those bent on doing them harm.

Consider this brief sampling of the Democrats’ legislative efforts to abet the doxxing of ICE agents, according to the Daily Signal:

Democrats presented a bill in the Massachusetts House… [that] would require law enforcement officers to fully show their faces and wear their names or badge numbers on their uniforms. The bill makes exceptions for medical masks or face protection in emergency situations… Violation of the bill would result in a misdemeanor…

Democrat Sens. Alex Padilla of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey unveiled the federal Visible Identification Standards for Immigration-Based Law Enforcement, or VISIBLE, Act in Congress on Tuesday. The bill would require immigration officials to display “clearly visible identification….”

For mavens of irony, recall this is the same Democrat Party that, during COVID, tried to coerce an entire country into wearing masks by claiming it would save lives. Today, however, the left does not mind risking the lives of ICE agents by trying to unmask them.

What is the rationale for this about-face? According to U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), “These people are wearing masks, and they are totally unidentified. … It’s completely improper and one has to assume they’re hiding something or they’re hiding misbehavior because otherwise, why would they be wearing masks and denying their identities?”

Democrats have a long track record of blaming society for crime, not the criminal. Not surprisingly, then, through the left’s perverted prism, the problem with the illegal immigration crisis is neither criminal immigrants and gangs nor those engaged in human trafficking and weaponized mass migration, but rather it is the dedicated men and women of ICE who are enforcing law at great personal risk. According to Mr. Nadler, it is ICE who are presumed guilty until proven innocent. In yet another boon to mavens of irony, Mr. Nadler once chaired the House Judiciary Committee.

It seems Democrats have finally found some government employees it does not like. For as President Trump stated in the same article: “[Democrats] wouldn’t be saying that if they didn’t hate our country… You put [ICE agents] in great danger, in tremendous danger.”

By targeting ICE agents, what do the Democrats gain? By supporting illegal immigration, they subsidize their failing blue cities with expanded voting districts and federal largesse based upon population. But what else are Democrats tacitly abetting by spending all their time assailing the solution?

Let us commence with this albeit non-exhaustive list of what the Democrats continue to abet: the human trafficking and exploitation of children and adults; open borders and, thus, an open door for terrorists and criminals to easily access our homeland; weaponized mass immigration by America’s enemies; the erosion of the rule of law and the credibility of institutions; continuing domestic disorder; unfairness for those citizens and new immigrants who play by the rules—especially those who live in economically disadvantaged communities, which now have fewer jobs and artificially depressed wages; overcrowded schools and hospitals; and a fraying social safety net growing under the weight of millions of newly arrived working poor.

Our nation is grappling with the illegal immigration crisis brought on by the Democrats’ inhumane open border policies. Yet, Democrats are not trying to atone for their malfeasance. Instead, Democrats are feverishly attacking the dedicated civil servants dutifully doing a thankless job cleaning up the mess the party created. No, what the Democrats are signaling is not virtue. It is contempt for these honorable ICE agents and their families and for the American people.

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003–2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is also a contributor to Chronicles, a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars, and a co-host of “John Batchelor: Eye on the World” on CBS radio, among sundry media appearances.