Pop quiz: What is the primary purpose of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, otherwise known as ICE? If you said, “Enforcing the nation’s immigration laws and deporting those who shouldn’t be here,” congratulations! Move to the head of the class.

If you go to the agency’s website and click on the “What We Do” tab, about midway down on the page, you will read, “Immigration enforcement is the largest single area of responsibility for ICE.” (The dentistry picture is somewhat confusing, but I digress…)

Unfortunately, ICE doesn’t appear to be succeeding in its mission. Deportations are down more than 40%, while ICE’s budget has gone up by 25%. How’s that for a slogan — “Big Government: Doing Less with More of Your Money.”

Making matters worse is the fact that last year the Obama administration released nearly 20,000 “criminal illegal immigrants, including 208 convicted of murder [and] over 900 convicted of sex crimes.”

Seniors vs. Dreamers

It has often been said that we treat illegal immigrants better than our veterans. Once picked up at the border, illegal immigrants are taken to detention facilities where they are immediately given access to health care. (Perhaps that explains the dentistry picture!) Meanwhile, our veterans have to wait months for the treatment they earned.

Economists and politicians often tell us that we need illegal immigration so that new workers can keep Social Security going. That doesn’t appear to be such a good bargain. It seems we are spending more on the future “Dreamers” than elderly Americans currently on Social Security receive in benefits.

The Obama administration has budgeted roughly $17,613 for each “unaccompanied child” it expects to cross the border this year. According to one analysis, that is double what the administration spent on “unaccompanied children” in 2010.

But here’s the kicker: It is roughly 20% more than average senior citizen collects in Social Security benefits.

That speaks volumes about the left’s priorities.

Baby Drop Boxes

Indiana is a pro-life state, and Mike Pence is a pro-life governor. Hoping to save the lives of abandoned babies, the state’s first “baby drop box” was recently installed at a volunteer fire department in Woodburn, Indiana. The effort was spearheaded by Monica Kelsey, whose birth mother abandoned her.

I applaud Kelsey and Gov. Pence for their commitment to life. But it is heartbreaking that this is what the country has come to. Even with safe haven laws and abortion on demand, which we’re told prevents the birth of unwanted children, babies are still being abandoned.

It is hard to imagine anyone abandoning a newborn baby and leaving it to die. Sadly, abortion has cheapened the concept of human life at all stages. So the pro-life community in the heartland of America has come up with the concept of “baby drop boxes” to try to save babies after they are born.

It is one more example of the breakdown of the family, of reliable standards of right and wrong, and America’s desperate need for spiritual renewal.

Barack & Boehner, Together Again

Throughout this primary season, polls have found that conservative voters feel betrayed by the Republican Party. If you need help understanding why there is such frustration among grassroots conservatives, look no further than former House Speaker John Boehner.

He recently compared one of the Senate’s leading conservative members to Lucifer, the devil, el diablo — language he would never use when talking about Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama. Boehner followed that up by shooting a video that was played to the overwhelmingly liberal audience at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Boehner was all too happy to play into the left’s celebrity worship of the president. As one colleague of mine put it, Boehner acted like he was part of the Obama “Rat Pack.”

There he was yucking it up with a man who dismantled our health care system, who made America’s foreign policy a laughing stock, who wasted the sacrifices of American heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who worked daily to evade the Constitution and the Congress.

Boehner seems more interested in being liked by Washington’s liberal media elites than he is in defending conservative values. That is all the evidence you need of why the GOP leadership is perilously close to running a party with no loyal voters left in it.