FILE - Federal agents conduct immigration enforcement operations Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy, File)

Anecdotes favorable to American law enforcement abound. They tell of neighborhood residents protected from criminality, businesses safeguarded, and of society’s lowest being grabbed up and accorded the harsh justice their crimes merit.

(I love it when American justice lands hard on evildoers.)

And there are other stories: Lost children located. Homicides solved. Sex offenses punished. Robbers, con men, and violent attackers sealed away in the graybar hotel. Cooperative efforts with fire, medical, and other rescue personnel to rush to the aid of victims of accidents or natural disasters.

Indefatigable agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are no less heroic members of that noble body than any other uniformed friend of the innocent. They uphold laws duly passed by bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. These laws were structured and enacted to advance legitimate public interests.

No citizen is well-served by hospital waiting rooms jammed wall-to-wall, schools awash in non-English speaking outsiders, or housing costs skyrocketing as the buyer-market expands. Additional ills that real citizens suffer include employment opportunities going to low-wage illegals, social services being overwhelmed, and the splintering of our cultural mileau.

A February message from Prager U to supporters minced no words: “ICE is not the villain–it’s a law enforcement agency essential to our nation’s safety and sovereignty. These agents work every day to stop human trafficking, fight drug cartels, arrest violent criminals, and enforce our nation’s immigration laws.”

Miseries suffered by illegals sneaking toward the United States turn good peoples’ stomachs: A reported 31% of women on that path are raped, some repeatedly. Accounts tell of “rape trees” here and there along the way, in which shredded, silently screaming intimate garments wave in the breeze.

Too, one hears of foreign families giving birth control pills to minor females prior to the trek, knowing vile assaults are likely.

Children are smuggled for unspeakable horrors. Deadly fentanyl and other fatal substances are brought in, causing thousands of American deaths. Gang-affiliated, illegal gun-wielding miscreants laughingly swagger, chins high.

And as other countries empty their prisons and asylums of ‘undesirables,’ as President Trump warns, vicious assaults are perpetrated on vulnerable American women like Mollie Tibbetts, Megan Bos, Rachel Morin, Dr. Linda Davis, Maria Pleitez and her daughter Dayanara, and Laken Riley.

Add to that sorrowing roster innocent American men, women, and children killed in highway traffic by illegal semi drivers (who can’t decipher road signs), given licenses by “progressive” Democrat governors.

And still, there are voices advocating that the above terribleness be allowed to flourish, unchecked. The brain boggles, and the compassionate heart laments left-wing cruelty.

By rightly deporting illegals, ICE counters the Democrat magnet of ‘Come one, come all – free everything!’ Agents’ deportation work is what protecting the public looks like. And since they enforce laws that resulted from established political processes, their activities are very much what democracy looks like.

If more news organizations reported the positive aspects and accomplishments of American law officers, interference in official acts might dwindle. (That’s assuming pro-crime rioters aren’t cashing checks.)

Elementary schools once imparted the importance of officers maintaining law and order in civilized societies. And how we all benefit, when officers are allowed to do their jobs without being swarmed by jeering, cursing, doxxing mobs shoving cell-phones in their faces.

During a recent Fox News interview, White House border czar Tom Homan made his and ICE’s mission clear: “‘Prioritize public safety threats and national security threats’ doesn’t mean to forget about everybody else. I’ve said it from day one, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table. We’re looking for you, and we’ll remove you when we find you.”

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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 Daily Caller, American Thinker, Iowa Standard, and numerous heartland papers. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.