OPINION:
When leftist protesters stormed into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, during a Sunday service on Jan. 19, they chanted and screamed. Some of them told the frightened children that their parents were Nazis. Others blocked parents from reaching their children to remove them from the chaos.
Former CNN newsman Don Lemon, who claimed to have been an observer, insisted that the mob — and he — had a First Amendment right to disrupt the service. After all, one of the church leaders is a federal immigration official.
The pastor, Jonathan Parnell, whom Mr. Lemon badgered, reminded him that people at the service were there for one reason: to worship Jesus Christ.
The Justice Department issued a criminal complaint against Mr. Lemon under the federal FACE Act, but it was tossed by a U.S. magistrate judge whose wife works for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. On Thursday night, however, the FBI arrested Mr. Lemon and three other people in Los Angeles.
Right after the Jan. 19 church invasion, Mr. Lemon, who proudly says he is a “gay, Black man,” did a podcast interview trashing the church. “I think people who are in religious groups like that — it’s not the type of Christianity that I practice — but I think they’re entitled, and that entitlement comes from White supremacy. They think this country was built for them, that it’s a Christian country.”
So this isn’t just about immigration. It’s about recasting America as a racial theocracy that must be overthrown.
It’s also about keeping illegal immigration flowing to benefit Democrats. The census counts everyone — citizens and noncitizens — and congressional districts are drawn by population.
With the border secure, conservative states could gain seven electoral votes and districts while liberal states could lose five, according to the American Redistricting Project. That would be a 12-vote swing.
Democrats hotly oppose counting only citizens for apportioning districts. They also want the anti-ICE protests to keep their massive Minnesota welfare fraud scandal off the front page. Thus, they stir the pot by equating federal agents with Nazis or fascists.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told a press conference on Jan. 26: “We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.”
“Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” is the firsthand account of a Jewish teenager whose family hid for two years from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam before being arrested by the Gestapo. All but one family member perished in a concentration camp, including Anne.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum called Mr. Walz’s comment “deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges.”
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. antisemitism envoy, said: “Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and abided by Dutch law. She was hauled off to a death camp because of her race and religion. Her story has nothing to do with the illegal immigration … plaguing Minnesota today. This is a disgusting and dangerous comparison.”
On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama, who in 2010 railed against amnesty as an incentive for illegal immigration, piled on, issuing an X post condemning “what this administration is doing, and the threat it poses to the basic freedoms of every American.”
Days earlier, Hillary Clinton pounced on the fake news story about immigration officials arresting a 5-year-old boy in Texas. His father was an illegal alien who fled. Federal agents tried to return the boy to his mother, who wouldn’t open the door, so they took him into protective custody and then reunited him with his detained father.
“Enforcing the law is one thing. Terrorizing a population, using children as pawns, is another,” Mrs. Clinton posted on Jan. 23. “My heart aches for Liam Ramos and his family.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris posted this the same day: “Liam Ramos is just a baby. He should be at home with his family, not used as bait by ICE and held in a Texas detention center. I am outraged, and you should be too.”
Well, we might be more outraged if the federal agents had abandoned the boy and left him alone in a car.
This is a pivotal year, with congressional midterms in November. Democrats hope to win the House, impeach President Trump again and undo all he has accomplished, especially the secure border.
In March 2017, as Mr. Trump’s first term began, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington state Democrat, told a Progressive Caucus conference, “We really need to, as soon as we get the gavels back, we have to dismantle DHS, and ICE and CBP.”
The caucus has nearly 100 hard-left members in Congress and comprises about half of House Democrats, plus Sen. Bernard Sanders, the socialist Vermont independent. They back the goals of communist/Islamist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, including socialist health care, free college, free child care, rent control, climate extremism, LGBTQ activism, gun grabbing, higher taxes and an open door for illegal immigration.
This kind of stuff impresses the Democrats’ free stuff army and people such as Molly Ringwald. In an Instagram post Tuesday, the actress appeared in a black top and black beret, saying, “I’ve always been so proud to be an American, but right now, this is a fascist government. It’s not becoming a fascist government; it is a fascist government. And ICE is brutalizing people!”
She said Nazi collaborators in France were treated as criminals after World War II and that anyone cooperating today is “going to be seen as a collaborationist.”
Democrats have big plans for what happens after November. They should be taken seriously.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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