From Words To Bullets: The Cost Of Calling ICE ‘Nazis’

We have seen a massive spike in the number of attacks on ICE agents over the course of the last six months, since President Trump took office and decided we were actually going to enforce our border.

On Monday morning, a 27-year-old man with a rifle and tactical vest was killed after exchanging fire with law enforcement officers at a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas.

Border Czar Tom Homan has said attacks on ICE agents are up nearly 700%. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said Left-wing anti-police rhetoric is having something to do with the uptick in violence, asserting, “All of the rhetoric and the false information that’s been put out by the Left is just increasing violence against our agents, and it’s just unacceptable.”

The Left has been claiming for a very long time that if you use rhetoric that is too colorful, if you say things that are borderline, this can lead to “stochastic terrorism.” What you’re doing is creating a permission structure for terrorism.

As I’ve said before, unless you are actually excusing or inciting violence, you are not responsible for that violence. With that said, when you raise the temperature, there will be people who bubble over.

That doesn’t mean Bernie Sanders is responsible for the congressional baseball shooter, for example, but what it does mean is that when you keep saying over and over and over that Republicans are going to kill your grandparents when they take away Medicare or some other such nonsense — and then somebody goes and shoots a bunch of Republican congresspeople for playing baseball — at the very least, you should consider whether the language you used was well-calibrated.

This is the problem. The language currently being used by the Left with regard to ICE or Border Patrol is extraordinary. It sets up a permission structure that causes people who are unhinged to take their behavior to the next level.

In the same way, if you keep saying President Donald Trump is Hitler, at some point, someone might take you seriously and go and try to kill Hitler.

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Here are just a few examples of members of the high-ranking Left going after ICE and Border Patrol in language that is completely unhinged.

Failed Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz: “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu: “I don’t know of any police department that routinely wears masks. We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks.” 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass: “Which is why I say that I feel like we have all been in Los Angeles a part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the federal government decides they want to roll up on a state, or roll up on a city, and take over.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): “The combination of these Gestapo-like tactics with the fact that these are nonviolent, non-criminal immigrants doing things the right way …”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “I mean, in that last facility, I was not safe from the officers in that facility.”

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): “You know, my dad served in the Second World War. He fought the Nazis in Northern Africa. He fought the Nazis on the Italian peninsula. And I think he’s looking down right now, and he’s happy that I’m fighting today’s Nazis.”

There are a lot of prominent Democratic figures using this kind of rhetoric, and that language is going to have some sort of consequence.

It doesn’t mean they’re responsible for a person trying to shoot Border Patrol agents, but if you keep increasing the temperature and if you keep excusing violence on the other end — which, by the way, the Democrats have been doing for quite a long while, ranging from the sort of violence we saw during the BLM riots of 2020 to excusing the alleged murderous actions of Luigi Mangione on the streets of New York — you’re obviously going to lead to an uptick in violence.

You may not like President Trump’s immigration policy; that is your prerogative. But it is also the law of the land. You are not allowed to cross our southern border illegally and simply live here.

That is the law of the land. If you don’t like that law, you should talk to your member of Congress. If you don’t like that law, then you should try to change that law.

That’s how it works in a democracy.

You don’t get to simply call the people who are enforcing the law “Nazis” and “Gestapo agents” and then act surprised when people attack the supposed Nazis and Gestapo in our midst.