Brehm: On the complicated issue of immigration, neither party gets it quite right

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The 2020s have not been Minnesota’s decade. Last year was rough enough and now 2026 is kicking off with the state awash in thousands of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. No matter how pro law-and-order one may be, it’s not a scenario anyone wants, including classical conservatives like me who don’t trust the federal government much no matter who occupies the White House.

So how did we get here? In part, a national election. In 2024, after the Biden administration loosened the southern border and a huge wave of some 5 or 6 million migrants moved into the U.S. illegally, the American people made it clear they had had enough. Voters — this columnist included — viewed the situation as an existential crisis for U.S. sovereignty and elected, overwhelmingly, an imperfect man they were confident would reseal the country’s boundaries and remove undocumented immigrants possessing criminal records with haste as he promised.

President Donald Trump kept his word. Illegal border crossings into the U.S. are now at historical lows and 92% less frequent than they were during the peak from when President Joe Biden was in office. If you cannot applaud this achievement, you likely have a case of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and should seek treatment if you want to evaluate national politics from a healthy perspective again.

Trump also acted on his mandate to get tough on undocumented migrants here with a criminal past. Hurrah, I said! And polls show most Americans and Minnesotans did, too.

Here’s where our own Minnesota Democratic leaders became part of the problem. Rather than recognize the country has shifted on the issue of immigration and help deliver tougher enforcement, Minneapolis and St. Paul maintained that they would continue to serve as sanctuary municipalities for all undocumented immigrants. Under these policies, local law enforcement does not cooperate in federal immigration law administration whatsoever.

Has ICE’s presence in the Twin Cities made our community safer? You be the judge. It’s been reported that as part of its recent Operation Metro Surge, ICE has arrested child rapists, killers, gang members and drug traffickers that Minnesota government allowed to roam freely on our streets. The communities where these monsters hid are without question more secure thanks to ICE’s apprehension of them. I say good work.

It was welcome news, too, that the federal government is sending in more resources to crack down on the multibillion-dollar fraud apparatus our DFL government showed little interest in stopping. When federal tax dollars are being swindled and the local government entrusted to safeguard them instead seemingly facilitates their theft, then Washington has a prerogative to take charge of the situation.

That said, it’s concerning to see the Trump administration’s aggressiveness toward undocumented immigrants with no criminal background who have lived among us for years now without incident or deportation order. Some statistics show that a majority of those being apprehended by ICE are, other than their immigration status, law-abiding. I admire ICE’s zealousness toward deporting criminal migrants, but that same approach toward this peaceful sector of the undocumented population is unwarranted and can be inhumane.

As Minnesota’s Catholic bishops wrote early last year: “For too long, our laws on paper said ‘stop, no entry,’ while in fact, for economic and political reasons, undocumented migrants were allowed inside, sometimes with the encouragement of business interests and even our government.” Americans have compassion for those who entered our country in this way many years ago and have since then followed the law, worked hard and added to our economy and communities. We want comprehensive and tough immigration reform — not vans with darkened windows — to tackle this complicated aspect of America’s immigration problem. And for these people to be treated with dignity and due process.

The Trump administration was also misguided to rescind a policy that had previously limited immigration law enforcement near churches, schools and hospitals. While I respect the brave men and women of ICE, they don’t belong in these places unless a crisis or particularly dangerous target demands it. And I doubt many agents like being put there anyway.