Time to thank Bill Clinton! It has been 30 years since he got legislation through Congress to reform immigration, and this is one of the unfortunate side effects of the changes that came to pass. Although many of you have been lead to believe that what is happening is wrong, the odds are you don’t really know what happened.
Facts:
1) The laws that ICE is enforcing originated in three powerful acts of Congress, not from the current president’s executive order. Two of them were signed into law by Clinton.
2) The primary law governing all people coming and going is the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It was enacted on June 27, 1952. Most modern ICE deportation authority can be traced to this act and its major amendments. It is the meat and the potatoes behind what is lawful and not lawful with regard to immigration, not the 4th amendment. Courts uphold INA consistently. INA is the primary, comprehensive federal law governing immigration, including grounds for deportability (e.g., criminal offenses, unlawful presence), removal proceedings, and enforcement powers. Clinton and Congress at the time saw the need for reform, so they did.
3) The second is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA). It was passed as part of the broader 1996 welfare reform bill and signed into law on September 30, 1996. This reform dramatically expanded grounds for deportation (especially for criminal convictions), created expedited removal processes, mandated detention for certain categories, and strengthened enforcement tools against “criminal aliens.” It is frequently cited as enabling the aggressive removal of individuals with criminal records. For all of you who scream, “Where is due process? Why aren’t these people getting to go before a judge?” In 1996, this became due process. Fof all of you who point back to “rights,” this act took away some of those rights if you were deemed to be a criminal alien. People have taken the law to court many times, saying it violated the intent of the 4th Amendment, and they were told to stop crying and go home. In the same sense that false advertising is a limitation of free speech, IIRAIRA is a limitation of due process.
4) The third one is an anti-terrorism act (AEDPA) that was also a Clinton law, just like NNRAIRA. This one specifically limited judicial review of deportations. Clinton wisely knew that if each illegal immigrant were given Miranda rights, a lawyer, a day in court, warm meals, and a place to sleep, the country would never survive. Congress passed this law to shut down the attorneys and the courts from slowing deportations down, and he signed it into law with a smile on his face.
Not facts:
1) Under Trump, Congress did NOT pass new federal immigration law that triggered ICE’s actions in MN. The truth is that statutory authority comes from what Congress under Clinton did. If that is all you take away from this, good job!
2) At the start of the year, the Laken Riley Act was signed in Jan of 2025. Among the many things that the bill does, it requires ICE to detain non-U.S. citizens who are criminals. If they don’t detain them, the states can legally sue the government for not rounding up all the illegals and getting them out. Ignoring illegal acts done by illegal aliens is also now illegal. You may need to read that last sentence a few times, or you can read the Laken Riley Act. This was a reaction to Biden NOT doing anything about the criminal illegals.
I save the best for last. These are the NOT-reported facts that should piss you off.
1) Most of the MN congressmen and women voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act last year. They believe their constituents want the federal government to come and remove illegals who are committing crimes. Perhaps it is too commonsensical to consider it news. To repeat, most of MN want criminal illegals out.
2) Representatives from MN issued a joint statement a year later, thanking a democratic member of Congress from MN for her support of this bill. Read that once again, if you don’t mind. It should anger you that no media source is talking about how the elected officials who represent MN in Congress wanted this bill and the power it gave ICE. Instead, we are led to think that MN is full of anti-government people. Some are, but most aren’t. The media is attempting to convince us that MN residents don’t like what ICE is doing, despite the Congressional record to the contrary.
People don’t know what lawful is and have been falsely led to think that illegal and criminal immigrants have the same rights and protections that US Citizens do. That bit of misinformation that “all people are entitled to the same or equivalent due process” is perhaps the biggest lie we have been fed.
And don’t forget to thank Clinton for making this all possible.
