Hardworking Americans watched a federal law-enforcement leader speak plain truth this weekend when El Centro sector chief Gregory Bovino told elected officials to knock it off with the inflammatory anti-ICE rhetoric that has been fanning the flames of violence. Enough tiptoeing around radical mobs and virtue-signaling politicians — when federal officers are threatened and doxxed, there are real victims and real consequences for public safety.
Bovino is no desk-bound bureaucrat; he’s the Border Patrol sector chief who led aggressive operations in Los Angeles and has been front-and-center as federal enforcement moved into other cities to protect federal facilities and enforce the law. Americans should pay attention to a leader who boots up where lawlessness takes hold rather than offering hollow lectures from city hall.
Portland’s protests around an ICE facility have repeatedly crossed the line from peaceful dissent into dangerous harassment, including doxxing of officers and assaults that have put families at risk and forced federal intervention. When protest becomes assault and intimidation of sworn officers, it stops being a civic exercise and becomes a public-safety crisis that the federal government rightly refuses to tolerate.
Let’s be honest: rhetoric matters. The White House and Homeland Security have correctly pointed out that sustained, dehumanizing attacks on ICE and CBP from elected leaders and loud activists create an atmosphere where political violence finds oxygen. If you cheer on the chaos or call for doxxing and “no peace for ICE,” don’t be surprised when someone takes that rhetoric into the real world and someone gets hurt.
Federal leaders and front-line agents are doing the job many cities have abandoned, and they deserve backing rather than barbs from politicians who pander to radicals. CBP and ICE officials have publicly demanded local leaders stop cozying up to mobs and start protecting communities and law enforcement — it’s a simple ask that separates civilization from anarchy.
For every proud, blue-collar American who shows up to work and obeys the law, there should be zero tolerance for the politicians and pundits who stoke violence with breathless rhetoric. Support law and order, back the men and women in uniform, and stop turning federal officers into political scapegoats; if we want safe neighborhoods and secure borders, we must start acting like it matters.
