Even in wartime, Democrats choose illegal immigrants’ sanctuary over Americans’ safety. Democrats started their shutdown of portions of DHS because they wanted to make DHS’s ability to deport illegal aliens harder and more dangerous for those doing it. Even after the attack on Iran began, Democrats did not relent. Now, as attacks against Americans mount here at home, Democrats still refuse to fully reopen the federal department specifically charged with keeping Americans safe.
It was bad enough that Democrats shut down portions of DHS in the first place. Their reasons for doing so were even worse: DHS was deporting people who were not legally supposed to be here. So, they demanded a list of conditions that would make deporting these illegals harder. Democrats want to prohibit immigration agents from wearing masks (though their extremist allies want to, and do, dox agents); require officers to display ID (though they oppose this for voting); limit where agents can arrest people (unlike any other violators of the law); and demand agents obtain judicial warrants to make arrests (something police officers do not have to do with U.S. citizens).
That Democrats would try to make deportations harder is hardly surprising. It was clear where their concerns lay, and they were not with law-abiding American citizens. For four years, they opened America’s southern border and turned a blind eye to its consequences.
Then came the administration’s decision to militarily stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and its ability to fire ballistic missiles — a combination that, if allowed to reach completion, would have meant horrific consequences for the Middle East and the world. Of course, Democrats opposed this action too, just as they had supported supine foreign policies that allowed Iran to edge closer to inflicting a holocaust.
For those who are not Democrats, let’s put those pieces together. Democrats have closed consequential portions of the Department of Homeland Security, and America is now engaged militarily with the world’s preeminent sponsor of terrorism for the last half-century. Does anyone else see a problem with closing significant portions of the agency with the primary responsibility for keeping Americans safe during a conflict with the world’s leading terrorist state — one that has shouted “Death to America” for 47 years and kicked off its reign of terror by holding hostage American diplomats?
The threats to Americans here at home are hardly theoretical ones. And they are continuing to mount.
After Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed by a U.S.-Israeli strike on Feb. 26, the U.S. intercepted an encrypted message that was believed to have originated in Iran. The message was believed to be a potential “operational trigger” for “sleeper cells” of terrorists to retaliate outside Iran. The federal government passed along this news to law enforcement agencies here.
Democrats continued to keep DHS shut down.
The reason that this is such a potential danger in the U.S. is that the Biden–Harris administration opened the U.S. southern border for four years. According to a House Judiciary Committee report in August 2024, among the four million people who poured illegally and unvetted into the U.S. were “at least 99 potential terrorists” on the terrorist watchlist who were released into America. How many came in undetected is unknown.
Attacks clearly related to Islamic extremism have also taken place in the U.S. recently.
On March 1, three people were shot to death, and 15 were injured in Austin, Texas. The shooter wore a hoodie with “Property of Allah” on it and a T-shirt with the Iranian flag on it.
On March 7, two men attempted to detonate bombs in New York City outside the mayor’s residence. Said Attorney General Pam Bondi: “This was an alleged ISIS-inspired act of terrorism that could have killed American citizens,” and “these men allegedly sought to inflict mass casualties in service to ISIS with the hope of exceeding the carnage of the Boston Marathon bombing.” The two attackers later made pro-ISIS statements to police and wrote out another.
Democrats continued to keep DHS shut down.
On March 12 in Michigan, a man originally from Lebanon who was a naturalized U.S. citizen rammed a truck carrying explosive materials through the doors of a synagogue in what the FBI called a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”
Democrats continued to keep DHS shut down.
Also on March 12, a man originally from Sierra Leone who was a naturalized U.S. citizen opened fire at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing an ROTC instructor. The man had previously been convicted in 2017 of providing material support to ISIS.
Democrats continued to keep DHS shut down.
As if these actual attacks were insufficient, the FBI informed California police departments: “We recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran.”
Democrats continued to keep DHS shut down.
How much more of a connection do Democrats need between the recent attacks and terrorism? How many more attacks do they need to see the threat? What more do they need to understand that DHS should be fully operational at this most dangerous time?
The unpaid TSA agents, DHS personnel, and airport delays are bad and unjust enough, but Democrats’ political petulance has crossed the line of life and death importance. There is never a good time to make America less secure, but wartime is unarguably the worst time to be doing so.
Originally, Democrats shut down DHS because they didn’t want DHS to deport illegal immigrants at any time. Now, they have continued to keep DHS shut down in wartime, because they still care more about the safety of those in America illegally than that of America itself.
READ MORE from J.T. Young:
If You Tax It, They Will Come?
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
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