While the border crisis continues, the American left is becoming more violent, and its enablers in Congress and the courts resist efforts to stem the crisis. Here are the latest developments from the weekend.

In Tacoma, Washington, police shot and killed an Antifa anarchist who attacked a detention facility in an apparent effort to kill the guards there. The attacker, Willem Van Spronsen, had been arrested during a protest at the same facility last year. 

Several friends indicated he sent a manifesto promising something big. The governor of Washington blames the incident on the atmosphere President Trump has created. 

At an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, demonstrators took down the U.S. flag and replaced it with the Mexican flag. They also took down and defaced a Blue Lives Matter flag with the words “Abolish ICE” and raised another flag that said “F—k Cops." 

Late in the evening, a squad of armed guards was finally able to remove the Mexican flag and restore the American flag to its rightful place.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is running for the Democrat presidential nomination as a supposed moderate, defended the flag desecration as "free speech.” Wrong!

It is not free speech to trespass onto federal property to destroy federal property. It is free speech to burn your own flag. You cannot tear down or burn someone else’s flag. 

I’m glad we have Gov. Hickenlooper on the record on this incident. Every Democrat presidential candidate should be asked about their views of what happened this weekend and whether they support raising the flag of a foreign nation in the place of the American flag.

All over America this weekend, elected Democrats ran to microphones to profess their loyalty to illegal immigrants. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, posted a video with the police chief standing next to him and declared, “Your city is on your side, and rest assured, here in Los Angeles we are not coordinating with ICE.” Garcetti may come to regret that decision. (See next item.)

Who’s on the side of law-abiding U.S. citizens? And why isn’t the LAPD cooperating with federal law enforcement?

It was the same thing in Chicago, where authorities showed more interest in protecting illegal immigrants than protecting Chicago residents from the mass violence that results in dozens of people being shot every weekend. 

Leftists were on bicycles in Hispanic neighborhoods warning illegal immigrants of any law enforcement efforts by ICE. Why aren’t they going through those neighborhoods warning kids of gangs and drug dealers?

A few weeks ago, various left-wing spokesmen called for the public harassment and “doxing,” exposing personal information online, of those who guard our borders. Go to their homes, go to their kids’ schools. Shame them publicly, the left insisted.

This weekend, Sen. Elizabeth Warren upped the ante by threatening to prosecute Border Patrol guards. She told the radical Netroots conference, “On my first day, I will empower a commission in the Department of Justice to investigate crimes committed by the United States against immigrants.”

While she pursues policies that make it impossible to detain illegal immigrants, now she’s threatening to target those guarding the border. This is how extreme the left has become. 

In stark contrast, President Trump issued an executive order giving “voice” to the victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens, crimes that never should have happened but did because liberal politicians refuse to secure the border.

By the way, only 33% of voters think the government is “too aggressive” when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants.

Homan vs. AOC

There were fireworks on Capitol Hill Friday as former ICE Director Thomas Homan testified before a House Oversight Committee hearing on the administration’s zero-tolerance policy. Several left-wing politicians attempted to embarrass and smear Homan. But he hit back even harder!

When Rep. Jesus Garcia (D-IL) accused Homan of being a racist, Homan said, “Your comments are disgusting,” and he challenged Rep. Garcia to do something to fix our broken immigration laws.

He also schooled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) about how our immigration laws work and why children are separated from adults at the border.

In related news, the Trump Administration announced yesterday that it was reforming the asylum process by requiring migrants to claim asylum in the first country they reach. In other words, a migrant from Honduras would have to claim asylum in Guatemala, rather than traveling more than 1,000 miles all the way through Mexico to claim asylum at the U.S. border.

In addition, the administration won an important victory Friday when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Justice Department can withhold certain federal grants from sanctuary cities.

Fighting Anti-Semitism

I am pleased to have been invited to the Justice Department yesterday for an all-day conference on fighting anti-Semitism in America. Attorney General William Barr addressed the conference Monday morning, calling anti-Semitism “the most ancient and stubborn form of racism throughout history." 

Barr reflected on the recent attacks at U.S. synagogues and declared, "As attorney general and a fellow citizen, I want to assure the Jewish community that the Department of Justice and the entire federal government stands with you and will not tolerate these attacks.”

The attorney general compared anti-Semitism to a metastasizing cancer, adding, “Just like a physical body, a body politic must have an immune system that resists anti-Semitism and other forms of racial hatred." 

He also warned that "Under the banner of identity politics, some political factions are seeking to obtain power by dividing Americans, and they undermine the values that draw us together, such as a shared commitment to our country’s success.”

Attendees also heard from FBI Director Christopher Wray, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Elan Carr, the administration’s special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism.

Yesterday’s conference is more evidence that the Trump/Pence Administration is committed to confronting the scourge of anti-Semitism. 

Sadly, this ancient evil is being mainstreamed in America today. As Pastor John Hagee recently noted, anti-Semitism is being “dangerously rebranded." 

So much so that Congress was unable to unequivocally condemn recent examples of anti-Semitism within its own ranks. Instead, a House resolution was so watered down that it became, as Pastor Hagee put it, "nothing more than a word salad filled with moral equivalence and of no real consequence.”

Anti-Semitism must be condemned wherever it is found, whether it is skinhead reactionaries or those among the political left. And we must also confront the enduring anti-Semitism that is promoted by Islamic supremacists. 

Kudos to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Ali confessed her own past anti-Semitism, explained how she overcame it, wondered if Ilhan Omar could do the same, and warned that “Muslim anti-Semitism … is anti-Semitism’s most zealous, most potent and most underestimated form.”