Aspiring Democratic lawmakers are competing to provoke the strongest reactions from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who are doing their duty, which will inevitably lead to more extreme rhetoric and violence. Democratic leaders, especially local leaders such as Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have a duty to make it clear that the First Amendment does not create or protect a supposed right to obstruct law enforcement. They must be equally clear that those who do will be prosecuted.
Last Friday, Evanston, Illinois, Mayor Daniel Biss and journalist Kat Abughazaleh, who are both running to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), confronted ICE agents outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Biss complained on social media that the agents tear-gassed and drove a van into activists, while Abughazaleh posted video of herself being tossed aside by ICE agents and falling to the ground.
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“They are trying to intimidate us, to stop us from standing up and being part of a nonviolent resistance,” Biss wrote.
Abughazaleh told reporters after the incident, “The right wants to eliminate free speech. They want to eliminate the First Amendment.”
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But Abughazaleh and Biss were not merely protesting ICE’s presence in their community, nor the agency’s efforts to reverse the flood of illegal immigration caused by former President Joe Biden’s open border policies. Abughazaleh and Biss were, rather, physically impeding ICE’s efforts to enforce immigration law.
Abughazaleh actually boasted that this was her intention, bragging to reporters that her blocking the entrance to the facility led to “getting a car to turn” last week. She further boasted that ICE agents touched her this Friday after “we were in the way” of another van trying to leave the facility.
If Abughazaleh and Biss want to stand on the sidewalk holding anti-ICE signs, screaming condemnations, and accusing ICE agents of fascism, well, they are at liberty to do so. That is free speech. But that is not what they were doing. They were purposefully blocking ICE agents from doing their job. When Democrats start blocking ICE vehicles from lawfully using public streets, the federal agents have every right to use physical force to move them out of their way. That isn’t censorship, it’s law enforcement, and that is what happened.
ICE agents are already endangered by left-wing violence. Last week, an illegal immigrant resisting arrest used his car as a weapon against two ICE agents making a lawful arrest. In July, 11 activists were arrested in Texas for participating in an “ambush” of ICE agents that resulted in one law officer being shot in the neck.
Considering the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a shooting at an ABC affiliate in Sacramento by a teachers union official, and a shooting at a country club by an anti-Israel activist in New Hampshire that left one man dead, Democrat officials and those hoping to be elected should tone down their rhetoric. If you keep calling ICE agents fascists, activists such as those in Texas will take up arms and shoot them. Perhaps that is what the Democrats want.
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Blocking law enforcement is even more dangerous. It is not “nonviolent.” It involves using physical force to prevent the law from being administered, which, by definition, initiates a physical confrontation. If Democrats can protest ICE operations, they can be heard and seen, but they don’t have the right to block the law just because they believe something passionately or claim to.
Democratic leaders can either encourage reckless theatrics that put officers and civilians at risk or reaffirm the principle that speech should be protected. They should not perpetuate the lie that violence is speech. Abiding by the law and respecting its enforcement are not optional, so one should not abandon them as soon as one disagrees. Unless Democrats make that distinction unequivocally, they will share responsibility for the consequences of actions they unleash.