ICE agents recently caught up with Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts. Originally here on a 1999 student visa, and under a deportation order judicially issued last year, the Guyanese national had continued living in the U.S.

It’s true that the bureaucrat should be considered innocent until found guilty. But he reportedly fled authorities – first by car, then on foot -after they’d identified themselves. Agents found Roberts cowering in shrubbery. None of that suggests guiltlessness.

Roberts had a loaded gun in his car. As an illegal, he was forbidden from both gun ownership and voting; he was a registered Democrat in Maryland, where he’d previously also been convicted of loaded gun possession. That judge ordered him to leave America.

Some insist non-citizens like Roberts be allowed to maintain employment here (as he did), as well as cast ballots in our elections (as he also did), sit on juries, and even hold elective office. That prompts this question: What rights do legal U.S. citizens have that non-citizens here should not?

At issue is the meaning of citizenship. If its benefits apply universally, then all the peoples of the globe are Americans.

Advocates sometimes insist citizenship is illegals’ rightful due, as illegals may have lived for years in the United States.

Consider the principle of legal status in another context:

Five years ago, Roy stole a blue car in Philadelphia. Today, he still drives it. Because five years have passed, is the car now legitimately Roy’s, or does it remain stolen property?

Voices demanding citizenship be extended to illegals stress possible past economic contributions. They further insist that illegals brought into this country when they were children are without culpability. Sneaking in was not their choice, and they know no other country.

Consider another hypothetical:

After having stolen the blue Philadelphia car, Roy gives it to Pete. Though initially unaware that Roy had stolen it, Pete does later realize that. It is the only car Pete has ever had. And over the course of several years of driving it and enjoying its benefits, Pete spent considerable cash on gas, oil, and mechanical upkeep.

Do those factors make the car no longer the bounty of criminality, and somehow Pete’s rightful property? Should the original owner of the blue Philadelphia car simply absorb the loss, and exempt Roy and Pete from applicable laws against theft and possessing stolen property?

No, and no.

Some might argue citizenship is not a material commodity. But rights are properties. The freedoms of religion and association cannot be taken off the shelf, physical elements examined. Still, they have value.

One may think a current law is broken, and subject to possible future change. But that doesn’t justify ignoring its present actuality. People today should obey laws that exist today.

Civil order will fall if everyone picks which laws are to be respected, and which merit disregard.

President Trump properly prioritizes American interests above others. His sealing tight our Southern Border, halting the Democrat-cultivated illegal invasion, and ICE’s mass deportation of foreign lawbreakers are positives for America. That truth alone should be the deciding factor for legal citizens of the best country in the world.

Postscript: Per Christina Aguayo News, the Des Moines Public Schools Board hired Dr. Ian Roberts in 2023. That board is headed by Jackie Norris. She has implored observers to practice “radical empathy,” which this writer interprets as giving a pass to criminality. Norris is identified as a “longtime Democrat operative,” who in 2009 was Michelle Obama’s chief of staff. The prior year, Norris had been a “key player” in Barack Hussein Obama’s White House.

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Waterloo’s DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, American Thinker, and numerous Iowa papers. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.