I have always appreciated and respected law enforcement, and I can't understand this endless hateful demonization of I.C.E. Thankfully, not every state is like Minnesota.
------------------------------------
Minnesota Is Out of Its Mind. Is there a single person in the entire state who appreciates ICE’s work to defend Americans?
Jeffrey Folks | January 29, 2026
"As stated on its website, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota and elsewhere is attempting to carry out its duty to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.” The agency has been doing just this, especially in Minnesota, where it has removed hundreds of criminal aliens, some of them violent repeat offenders. One of the striking features of the ICE website is its listing (with photos) of the “worst of the worst,” whom the agency has managed to remove from American communities like Minneapolis.
"Another feature of the website is its “Wall of Honor” of ICE Fallen Officers dating back to 1915. Many of these have died in the last five years — heroes who sacrificed their lives protecting American citizens. The mainstream media did not cover the deaths of Joseph Love (October 19, 2024) and Robert Castioni, Jr. (July 24, 2023), both of whom served at the site of 9/11 and afterward contracted cancer, or of the many who died as a result of work-related exposure to COVID or other work-related injuries or illnesses.
"The men and women of ICE deserve our respect and support — just the opposite of what is happening in Minnesota. It is sickening to watch coordinated mobs of protesters shouting obscenities, taunting and assaulting ICE officers, vandalizing property, hurling frozen bottles, throwing fireworks, resisting arrest, and endangering the lives of ICE agents with their cars used as weapons. The conduct of these mobs is the opposite of the restraint posed by the orderly lines of law enforcement officers. It is the mob, not the police, that is inciting and carrying out violence.
"It may not be surprising that Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey, political leaders elected by the people of Minnesota, have apparently made no effort to defend ICE or to condemn the violence of the anti-ICE mobs, but one would think that somewhere in the state of Minnesota, there exists an individual or organization willing to express its gratitude to those who are risking their lives to protect them. So far as I know, no significant case of such gratitude exists. The entire state of Minnesota is out of its mind.
"Minnesota has been “out of its mind” for a long time, actually. It is one of a handful of states, along with California, that require instruction in ethnic studies before high school graduation. In Minnesota, all high school students are required to take a social studies course, and these courses contain units on ethnic studies that, according to the Center of the American Experiment (as summarized in The Polarization Myth, New York, 2025), are “straight out of a Marxist handbook” (89). According to The Polarization Myth, “students are taught to analyze ‘colonialism’ and ‘dominant and non-dominant narratives,’ using the conflict between Israel and Palestine as an illustration.” In this way students are indoctrinated into a grievance culture that reflexively questions authority and valorizes acts of opposition.
"Given this sort of education, it is no wonder that hundreds of agitators turned out to block ICE and resist ICE agents. According to The Polarization Myth, Minnesota’s ethnic studies curriculum was drafted in part by a group called Education Liberation Minnesota, a group whose “central figures have publicly stated their pro-Palestinian position and animus for Israel” (90).
"A similar model of animus toward power and opposition to authority underlies the violent protests that have taken place in Minnesota, though obviously the protests are coordinated and funded, possibly from outside the state. In Minnesota, radicals have found a population ready-made for the classic Marxist playbook: Identify a grievance, exacerbate it through protests and violence, create sympathy and martyrdom for the protesters, and bring about Marxist takeover and lasting control based on that sympathy. I suspect that those behind the Minnesota protests do not really care about the fate of deportees; what they seek is to instill unrest, undermine law and order, and bring about political change, especially change directed at President Trump.
"With the midterm elections just ten months away, leftists have a strong incentive toward creating antagonism and uncertainty around GOP policies. The Minnesota protests are theater, and the drama contains a clear message: Conservatives are authoritarian, fascistic, and undemocratic, so vote them out. The reality is just the opposite: Progressive Democrats are anti-democratic (cutting off dissent and free speech), and they are willing to resort to violence against lawful authority and against certain groups, such as Jews and Trump-supporters.
"According to FBI director Kash Patel, “the bureau has identified people and organizations financing leftist protests” in Minnesota. Patel reports that specific persons are now under investigation for coordinating events in Minnesota with the use of encrypted messages and financial backing. If this is verified, the protests are not entirely “spontaneous” and “local,” as some have claimed. Responsibility may be traced to wealthy leftists and leftist organizations that care little for individual deportees but that wish to incite widespread unrest.
"Those who have taken part in the protests, aside from paid agitators, are simply pawns in the hands of outside radicals. Their behavior is not civilized or democratic; it is the rabid violence of those who have lost their minds in the service of a fanatical Marxism directed by others who are cool and calculating in their planning and funding. The behavior, facial expressions, and language of the Minnesota protesters are appalling: they are hate-filled and furious, all in the service of non-deportation of some of the worst of criminals, including murderers and child rapists.
"What the Minnesota protests have revealed, more than anything, is the existence of a small segment of our population that is fanatical in its hatred of Trump and of America as most of us know it. When this segment is coordinated and led by well funded agitators, the result is a destructive unrest with national implications. The participants in the Minnesota protests have not thought these things through, but then they are not thinking. They are out of their minds."
------------
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment