Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ Face the Nation Sunday asked Rep. Tony Gonzalas (R-TX) a question about ICE agents acting without judicial warrants, agents entering private property at will, as well as arresting people. She said people who are against that extra-judicial behavior “just want adherence to Fourth Amendment constitutional protections. As a conservative, shouldn’t a judge be consulted?”

That bears repeating: “As a conservative” — and let’s quote a man who was moderately conservative so as to provide a sense of what conservatives think on the subject of things like adhering to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: “The world no longer has a choice between force and law; if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.” — “shouldn’t a judge be consulted?”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II, knew far more than most about force and consequently the importance of law.

Gonzales: “Of course, I believe in the Fourth Amendment. But what worries me is a judge should not hold up everything. We're seeing judges all over the country go beyond their level of authority, and so, if a law enforcement officer, let's just say, for example, sees a crime that's being committed or has due pro- or has due cause, then why can't they go in there. These administrative warrants, they aren't new. All of a sudden, the left is --”

And there you have a prime example of why what has historically been conservativism in America, the belief in the rule of law and the protection of individual liberty, is now meaningless. If judges get in the way of an ICE agent, then that can’t stand.

What he is saying is that if enforcing the Fourth Amendment is inconvenient, then it should be forgotten.

Sure, if an ICE agent happens to be looking through a home’s front window and sees an assault occurring or a giant stack or explosives or something, then certainly there is reasonable cause and no need to wait. But what has been shown to be the case more than once in Minneapolis/St. Paul, are ICE agents entering homes and seizing people without judicial warrants and without apparent crimes being committed. 

(“Oh,” some might object, “if a person is in the country illegally and is in the house, then a crime is being committed by that person being there.” OK. But is there evidence that person is in there? If so, wouldn’t a warrant be in order? “But they might leave before one can be secured.” Yes, but if they were there long enough for it to be known they are there, wouldn’t there have been time to get a warrant beforehand? And if there really is a concern that the person of interest might leave the home, given the number of federal agents on the ground, couldn’t at least a couple of them be assigned to keep watch on the house?)

Brennan brought up the case of the now-famous-for-reasons-he-probably-wishes-never-existed Liam Ramos, the five-year-old who was seized by ICE. Brennan pointed out the little boy and his father “had entered with US government permission through a process that the Biden administration had deemed legal. The current administration does not.” As she put it, Ramos and his father came “in through the front door with US government permission.” They didn’t sneak across the border. They followed the rules.

Gonzales: “Well, the front door was via an app that Biden knew exactly what he was doing, and he created this huge mess, and now President Trump is there to clean up.” 

“In through the front door with the US government permission.”

This has nothing to do with Biden, the favorite scapegoat for everything the Republicans don’t like. Mess or no mess, there was nothing illegal going on. 

With further questioning about the incident, Gonzales went on to say: “So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five-year-old at home. I also think, what about that five-year-old US citizen —”

That’s right. Those who don’t qualify need to leave. 

But when someone is following the procedure and suddenly the procedure changes, do you punish them, as that young child certainly was punished from the standpoint of having been torn away from his family?

Before Gonzales could go on about a “five-year-old US citizen” — and if he was going down the path that Kristi Noem does, something heinous would have happened to that child — Brennan cut him off saying:

“You feel comfortable defending that?”

Gonzales: “I feel comfortable — we have a nation of laws. If we don’t have a nation of laws —”

[What about the aforementioned enforcement of the Fourth Amendment that he apparently thinks isn’t important?]

Brennan: “They were following the- the law that is -- that is that's the reg, is that a new administration deemed the last administration's regulation not to be legal.”

Gonzales: “We can be compassionate, and we can also, we can also enforce our laws. And I think that's the secret sauce that the administration and Congress must do.

“Let's enforce our laws, but let's do it in a humane way.”

So why isn’t that happening? Why isn’t there humane treatment of people, regardless of their immigration status? This is not to say that if someone is committing a violent act that that person should not be stopped from doing so, but as we’ve seen in the cases of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, humane enforcement is not occurring.

This is how President Trump is cleaning up the mess — by ignoring the rule of law?

There is nothing conservative about armed troops in the streets of America.

If the ends justify the means, and if the means are outside the law, then where do we arrive at the end? Someplace that isn’t America.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.