The Backlash Building at Minneapolis

It’s too soon to determine exactly what happened in the two recent fatal shootings in Minneapolis. Journalists and authorities are poring through videos posted on the internet in a frame-by-frame effort to determine in hours or days what our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had to react to in seconds. The Journal has a sobering report — and an important editorial calling on President Trump to show some “heart” during enforcement.It’s not too soon to warn of the political backlash against the Trump administration and mark the political danger that tough tactics on immigration enforcement, though they may be justified by law, risk elevating the left-wing agitators and their political enablers, who oppose the agenda Mr. Trump was elected to execute. So it’s an important moment for Mr. Trump as the country barrels toward a mid-term election but nine months away.The violence at Minneapolis, after all, is tarnishing what would otherwise be one of the signal achievements of Mr. Trump’s first year in his second term — the control of unchecked immigration at the southern border. That was one of the president’s campaign pledges, and one that is backed by most Americans. The question of how to address the failure of Mr. Trump’s predecessor to regulate the border, and the entry of millions of illegals, is thornier.Mr. Trump has launched an ambitious campaign of deportations. The context of this deportation drive is the record-high level, reached in 2023, of illegal immigrants, some 14 million, living in America. This effort has, per the White House, led to the departure of some 2.5 million illegals either via deportation or by self-deportation, meaning of the migrants’ own volition. The White House is looking to deport yet more.“I think we’re going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online working for ICE, going door to door, making sure if you’re an illegal alien you’ve got to get out of this country and if you want to come back, apply through the proper channels,” is how Vice President Vance put it earlier this month. The breadth of these tactics by federal officials, though, is being met with resistance at Minneapolis and elsewhere.This defiance of federal authority has been shocking. It has been urged with hostile, and sometimes even crude language, of Democratic politicians like Governor Tim Walz and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. Their role in the deaths of protesters at Minneapolis is a question for another day, though these columns have marked the breach of professional civility posed by such opposition to Mr. Trump’s efforts to enforce federal law.Our long-held view on this emphasizes America’s need for human capital, while stressing the importance of controlling the borders. Hence the logic, say, of granting visas to educated strivers who want to work in tech. As we have noted, “such immigrants — say, Elon Musk — have helped put America in the van of the high-tech revolution.” At the same time, “in a free economy it’s not only the educated” who are needed and “will contribute and prosper.”Under President Biden, immigration policy collapsed. An unregulated border, as these columns have noted, is “handmaiden to human tragedy.” The events at Minneapolis bear witness to that. Even so, we added, “the free movement of labor is too important to be left to the left.” The president concedes that “we need people” for a thriving economy. If Mr. Trump gets the job growth he’s promised, he may need more immigrants sooner than he expected.

The Backlash Building at Minneapolis

The Backlash Building at Minneapolis

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