By Mark Wallace

Written by Mark Wallace

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

It happens like clockwork: once every several decades, the City of Los Angeles has a major riot resulting in lost lives, burnt buildings, and the massive destruction of property. In 1965, it was the Watts Riots. 27 years later, in 1992, the Rodney King riots. And now, in 2025, Los Angeles is in the midst of yet another carnival of rioting precipitated by the lawful actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) in rounding up murderers, human traffickers, child rapists and other vile criminals who happen to be illegally present in the United States.

But all riots are not equal. For perhaps the first time, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Governor of California are lined up not on the side of law enforcement but on the side of the criminals. Local law enforcement has apparently refused to come to the aid of fellow ICE law enforcement officers. Unwilling to permit ICE officers be murdered by hooligans throwing Molotov cocktails, President Trump quite rightly has federalized the California National Guard and ordered 2,000 troops to Los Angeles to defend these ICE  officers and to protect federal government property within the City of Los Angeles, such as the Roybal Federal Courthouse. 

It’s been ugly and violent. Insurrectionists waving Mexican flags have burned automobiles. The American flag has been burned as well. One wonders if these criminals love Mexico so much and hate the United States so much why they don’t all just go back to Mexico and save us all a lot of trouble.

The fact of the matter is that Los Angeles, a so-called “sanctuary city,” is a target-rich environment in which ICE has a lot of work to do. ICE has begun that work, and has been met with threats and violence. It’s important for ICE not to back down, and to administer swift justice to those who seek to prevent ICE from doing its job. If that means arresting these miscreants by the thousands, so be it. California has lots of desert land owned by the federal government, totally appropriate for building barbed wire-rimmed camps to hold them pending trial should existing detention facilities be filled to capacity.

Article One, Section Nine of the Constitution of the United States provides that “[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” (Italics added). Perhaps Los Angeles is at that point now. Thousands of criminals in Los Angeles are fighting to prevent ICE from enforcing immigration law. That sounds like a “Rebellion” to me. If Habeas Corpus is suspended, the thugs who seem bent on burning down Los Angeles can be arrested and held without court hearings until things simmer down. We can’t have lunatic left-wing judges turning these thugs back on the street to riot and burn some more while the problem is still ongoing. In the old days, when people had more respect for the law, the saying was “habeas corpus be damned, we’ll give them post-mortems.” There’s no need to go that far, but firm, direct and timely action is required to prevent Los Angeles from being ceded to the lawbreakers.

Predictably, California has now filed a lawsuit to require President Trump to withdraw federal troops and to leave ICE agents to the mercy of those whose main objective is to slaughter them. Here is yet another instance of Blue State Democratic officials siding with the criminals instead of law enforcement. We’ll soon see if they can find a judge who is sufficiently corrupt to side with the bad guys and issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction requiring President Trump to take away ICE’s protection and leave ICE officers exposed to murder and mayhem.

Article Two, Section Three of the U.S. Constitution provides that the President “shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Undoubtedly, President Trump is doing precisely that in sending the National Guard to Los Angeles to protect ICE. If some rogue judge orders President Trump not to obey the Constitution and to withdraw all federal forces immediately, is President Trump required to obey such a patently unlawful order? Who has greater authority, a rogue judge or the Constitution? Suppose China sent a flotilla and invaded the United States at San Diego, and a judge friendly to the Chinese Communist Party ordered President Trump not to deploy federal troops to resist the invasion. Would President Trump be required to obey such an order? Would he have to delay sending in the Army and Marines while an appeal of the order was pending?  

These are weighty questions, and if the carnage in Los Angeles continues on its present course, we may soon have an answer.  

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