ICE unleashed

OPINION:

President Trump can deploy federal troops to restore order in Portland, Oregon, allowing the deportations to continue. That was the preliminary finding this week by the nation’s most liberal appellate division, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The three-judge panel reversed a district court judge who thwarted the military operation at the beginning of the month. Liberal pundits downplay the significance of this order by pointing out that the panel was stacked with two of Mr. Trump’s appointees.

Although this is true, they omit an important fact. The jurists were deep-sixing the legal analysis of District Judge Karin J. Immergut, whom Mr. Trump also nominated, something he likely regrets.

Their conclusion is consistent with what the 9th Circuit decided in June. A separate group of judges upheld dispatching soldiers to California because “our review of the President’s determinations in this context is especially deferential.” The latest decision blasts Judge Immergut for disregarding “uncontested evidence” about the violence in Portland, saying “the district court turned the proper analysis on its head.”

This wasn’t a difficult determination. The commander in chief has discretion, granted by Congress, to call up the National Guard when he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Nightly antifa antics have impeded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement missions in Portland, with officers placed in legitimate peril. At an ICE facility in Dallas, an antifa thug shot into an ICE vehicle, presumably intending to murder agents. Instead, he killed a detainee and wounded two others.

These are terrorist tactics meant to dissuade the administration from enforcing federal immigration policy, but it’s not working.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that a record 515,000 foreign intruders have been ejected in the past nine months. If the pace is maintained through the rest of the year, the total could hit 600,000. She claims another 1.6 million have voluntarily fled the country.

“President Trump delivered the most secure southern border in U.S. history in record time, and now, our goal is to make sure it stays that way for the long run,” Ms. Noem said. She is also using the Coast Guard to “Make America Safe Again” by monitoring 260 miles along the Rio Grande Valley, formerly a hotbed of forced entry.

The migrant caravans have turned around. Teeming masses are no longer clambering over the border fence or swimming across the Rio Grande — reckless behavior that the previous administration encouraged. Americans are happy to see normalcy return.

In a Harvard-Harris poll conducted earlier this month, a whopping 78% of respondents endorsed the eviction of illegal alien criminals. A clean majority of 56% want every illegal alien sent back home. Surprisingly, even 36% of Democrats are OK with casting out mere trespassers.

Mr. Trump should be able to expel at least 2.5 million of the 20 million or so uninvited guests in the time he has left, but he is likely to exceed that target if the Supreme Court clears the way by articulating the president’s authority in these matters.

Uncontrolled immigration has been a disaster for the nation. Once public notices have reduced waiting times in hospital emergency rooms and freed up housing, there are more jobs and less is being spent on welfare, Democrats will have a hard time coming up with votes.

The Democrats’ scheme to achieve demographic dominance with outsiders and dependents is falling apart. Expect their reaction to become even more desperate.