The ICE Juggernaut
I find it mystifying that people, particularly (ostensible) defenders of capitalism, readily accept government claims that the immigrants being captured by ICE are violent criminals. Leave aside the fact that its mass raids ensnare even U.S. citizens—two of whom were fatally shot recently by ICE agents. Can these far-reaching round-ups—on the streets, in workplaces, at schools—be aimed only at dangerous criminals, or do they simply target foreign-looking people?
A N.Y. Times analysis of the immigrants arrested in major ICE operations over the first 10 months of 2025 (and two other studies have similar findings) shows the following:
· Only 7% had been convicted of a violent crime.
· Another 30% had been convicted of non-violent crimes (mainly traffic offenses).
· Another 30% had pending criminal convictions (with the breakdown between violent and non-violent crimes unclear).
· And 33% had no criminal charges against them whatsoever.
Further, with respect to the 30% who faced pending convictions, why are they among the ones being seized? Doesn’t our legal system still recognize the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”? Shouldn’t they be given the opportunity to be exonerated of the charges before ICE swoops down on them?
Further still, even among those convicted of a violent crime (as well as those convicted of a non-violent crime), most are not fugitives from justice. Rather, they have served their sentences and been released—at which point, ICE wants them. In regard to public safety, therefore, they are no more of a demonstrable threat than any citizen who is freed from prison and is allowed to enter society.
In other words, the “crime” committed by most of ICE’s targets is simply being in this country without official permission. They are being incarcerated and deported while posing no objective threat to anyone’s rights.
Notwithstanding these facts, the government continues to insist that ICE is going after real criminals. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE: “D.H.S. is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens— including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles and terrorists.”
Does anyone think that those in charge of the anti-immigration campaign have scruples urging them to distinguish between innocent and guilty immigrants? The truth does not matter to them, just as it does not matter to their ultimate boss, President Trump. When Alex Pretti was fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis, the immediate reaction by government officials was, not a commitment to discover the facts, but an impulse to provide cover for ICE. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, for example, referred to Pretti as “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino said it “looks like [Pretti] wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” D.H.S. Secretary Kristi Noem said that Pretti “arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement. . . . Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.” These were arbitrary assertions, for which there was no evidence. And when actual video evidence did emerge, it became clear that Pretti posed no such threat and was unjustly killed. But no retractions were offered.
Nor was the White House interested even in investigating the incident. It initially refused to allow Minnesota officials to look into the shooting to determine whether criminals charges should be brought against the shooters. State investigators were denied access to the crime scene. Only after a court order forbidding D.H.S. from destroying evidence, accompanied by a public outcry, did the administration grudgingly begin an inquiry into the Pretti case. (And the federal government remains adamantly opposed to looking into the earlier killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent.)
If this administration were concerned with actual crime, why are foreign-born perpetrators considered more dangerous than native-born ones? If someone is robbed, or raped, or murdered, does it matter whether the guilty party was born in Mexico or Minnesota? If crime-prevention were the goal, isn’t every federal dollar spent on funding ICE a dollar that could instead be given to states and localities to enable the police to go after real criminals?
The entire justification offered for the anti-immigration crusade is a pretext. It is a rationalization to disguise the tribalist hostility toward foreigners, i.e., toward people whose appearance and language are different. It is a rationalization for the goal of making America “pure” by ridding it of foreigners.
How is this tolerated in a country that was once made great by its devotion to the individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
You and Harry Binswanger are complete hypocrites on this issue.
Is Israel showing a tribalist hostility toward foreigners by having border security?
You act as if Europe and America has zero reason other than racism to not allow in third world criminals while you would never apply this standard to Israel...
Capital H HYPOCRITES.
You and Yaron and Harry have led the Objectivist movement off an irrational cliff.
Peter Schwarz's accusation against ICE—that its targeting of "violent criminals" is a spurious cover for "tribalist hostility toward foreigners"—has it precisely backwards. The real tribalism emanates from globalists like him, who advocate for open borders, deliberately diluting America's foundational supremacy of individualism by flooding the nation with ideologically blunt collectivists from cultures steeped in statism, altruism, and groupthink. These migrants, often from socialist or theocratic regimes, import anti-individualist mindsets that erode self-reliance, property rights, and rational egoism—the very pillars of American exceptionalism. By prioritizing a borderless "global village" over sovereign self-determination, globalists engage in their own form of tribal loyalty: to a transnational collective that sacrifices the individual to the mob.
Far from spurious, ICE's enforcement focuses on immigration violators with criminal ties, even if only ~7% have violent convictions.
Data shows broader priorities: 37% of arrests involve prior convictions (including drugs, DUIs, and assaults), plus 30% with pending charges—meaning two-thirds have U.S. criminal involvement, justifying removal under law. Dismissing this as mere "hostility" ignores the objective need to protect citizens from force initiators, whether violent or not.
Worse, Schwarz's statement is itself a surrender—a confession of impotence and emasculation. By framing border defense as irrational tribalism rather than rational self-preservation, it admits defeat to the globalist agenda, castrating America's will to assert its values and boundaries. This is epitomized in his dishonest cliché: "How is this tolerated in a country that was once made great by its devotion to the individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"—a manipulative invocation of the Declaration of Independence that twists individual rights into a suicide pact, obligating America to absorb unlimited collectivists who undermine those very rights. It's a cliché because it ignores context: rights are not for invaders or ideologues hostile to freedom, but for sovereign individuals in a rational society. True strength lies in unapologetic individualism, not apologetic dissolution.