Kerby Anderson

A few weeks ago, I talked about the looming danger in our cities that justifies deploying troops. I quoted from a commentary by Edward Ring that went into detail about the potential threat from foreign crime organizations.

The editors of The Spectator are much less likely to support the actions of the Trump administration but have also added their concern in an editorial. “The second Trump administration tends to characterize those who have illegally crossed the southern U.S. border as drug dealers, criminals and rapists. That is, of course, exaggeration, but it is no more a fiction than is the alternative belief, common among liberals, that all migrants are desperate people fleeing for their lives, who cannot possibly be expected to live in their home countries and are utterly dependent on making it to America in order to survive.”

The editors explain that the “folly of this belief has been exposed by the revelation that Mexican criminal gangs have been offering bounties for the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.” Later, they explain that when you have “criminal gangs trafficking infants and offering bounties to contract killers to eliminate state officials, what are you supposed to do? The gangs operating in Chicago and many other cities are not Dickensian petty criminals. They are highly complex, organized, and lethal fighting forces.”

There may be some exaggeration on the part of the Trump administration about gang activity and criminal activity in our cities. But the critics are naive about the considerable dangers looming in our nation’s streets today. They should not be criticizing the deployment of the National Guard. They should be welcoming their presence.