Yesterday in Hermitage, Tennessee, ICE officers tried to arrest an illegal for deportation. But the man’s neighbors intervened and prevented ICE from arresting him:
NEWS CHANNEL 5 – An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent tried to bring a man in Hermitage into custody, but neighbors formed a human chain to allow the man and his son to get home.
This happened Monday morning in the area of Brooke Valley Drive and Forest Ridge Drive. The man had entered into his van with his son when an ICE vehicle blocked him in.
Over the next few hours, neighbors came out to support their neighbor, bringing them water, gas, and wet rags so they could stay in their van.
“We made sure they had water, they had food, we put gas back in the vehicle when they were getting low just to make sure they were okay,” Felishadae Young, a neighbor, said.
Eventually, after about 4 hours, the neighbors created a chain to allow the father and son to run into their home. They were able to do so and ICE left.
The ICE agent had an administrative warrant. While that does allow ICE to detain someone, it doesn’t allow ICE to forcibly remove someone from their home or vehicle.
The man’s neighbors say if ICE returns they will prevent them from arresting him again:
Neighbors said while ICE had left, they believe that they will be back, and if they do return, the neighbors said they plan to once again do everything in their power to support their neighbors.
“I know they’re gonna come back, and when they come back, we’re coming back,” Young said.
This is absolutely ridiculous, on two levels. For one thing, it shouldn’t be so hard for an ICE agent to do his job and arrest an illegal that has orders for deportation. I’m sure it’s probably something Congress would have to legislate, so it’s unlikely to change.
But also, scenarios like this shouldn’t happen here. Democrats have so smeared the reputation of ICE that they are unable to do their job because of scenarios like this. And local law enforcement, in this case, is unwilling or unable to step in and aid ICE officials. They were there while this was all playing out, but only for crowd control if things got out of hand.
One day ICE officers won’t have these constraints and Democrats will rue the day they enabled this kind of behavior.