Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lost the plot. And the justification for its barbaric invasion of U.S. cities — which was slippery to begin with — has melted away.

First, it's worth noting that, since the siege started with federal agents swarming Los Angeles in June 2025, the administration's immigration crackdown has been aimed at localities run by Democrats. Even though I've written about immigration for more than 35 years, I didn't realize that there are no undocumented immigrants in red states. Apparently, you won't find them building houses in Texas, working in slaughterhouses in Iowa, picking potatoes in Idaho or tending to dairy farms in South Dakota.

Second, if the argument for the immigration raids was to make Americans safer by deporting violent criminals, then the rationale went off the tracks right at the beginning. In the first nine months of the new administration, data provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Deportation Data Project, a joint initiative of UCLA and UC Berkeley Law, revealed that, of all the people that ICE arrested during that time period, more than 74,000 people — or about a third — had no criminal record.

Meanwhile, it was a different story for prospective ICE agents. To help the administration meet its goal of adding 10,000 new agents in its first year, standards were lowered and training was cut short. Many potential recruits were turned away because they had criminal records — and, according to media reports, many others with criminal offenses were given a pass and hired.

And what about reports that ICE has relied on untrained independent contractors and bounty hunters to round up undocumented immigrants — or anyone who, because of skin color or accent, resembles one? That would explain why so many ICE agents look, act and sound less like law enforcement officers and more like militia members.

Community activists have worried for months that — with corners being cut — the public could be at serious risk.

Look at Minnesota. They were right to worry. On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Good was shot in the face and killed by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross after the 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three smiled at Ross and reassured him: "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at any of you." After the fatal shot, either Ross or one of his colleagues is heard growling: "f — bitch."

It's fine that Good wasn't mad. But every other American ought to be furious.

In the latest outrage, the Justice Department is not investigating Ross but has launched an investigation into Becca Good, Renee's widow. According to The New York Times, six federal prosecutors recently resigned to protest the department's upside-down approach to the case.

Central to that approach is a campaign to blame the victim by smearing a dead woman who can't defend herself. Good was a "deranged lunatic woman," according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Would she lie?

The videos detailing ICE's reign of terror are grotesque. U.S. citizens tackled to the ground and pounced upon by a half dozen agents. Protesters arrested for the "crime" of filming ICE, even while the agents film the protesters.

Then there is the story of Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Minneapolis pastor who intervened as agents surrounded a Hispanic woman and told them to take him because he wasn't afraid of them. That angered the agents, Callaghan told a reporter. One of them drew his gun and pointed it at the pastor. Callaghan was handcuffed, detained in an SUV, and asked repeatedly if he was "afraid".

When the pastor repeatedly said that he wasn't, an ICE agent finally let him go and told him: "Well, you're White. You wouldn't be fun anyway."

"It was then that I knew that these ICE raids are really about fear and intimidation," Callaghan said.

Don't forget racism, Pastor. That light is blinking bright.

There seems to be some confusion. You see, ICE agents — the real ones and the fake ones — are creating all this mischief and mayhem on our dime. They don't like it when we defy their orders. So what? They work for us, not the other way around. They need to remember that.

In Minnesota, a 17-year-old boy was dragged out of a Target department store by a gang of ICE agents. He was pushed to the ground, beaten, handcuffed, put in a vehicle, and then dumped onto the street several miles away. He was found by people walking by who asked if he was ok.

Sobbing and bleeding, the boy told them: "No, I'm not ok."

I hear you, kid. Neither are the rest of us.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Michael Chen at Unsplash