The city of Los Angeles erupted into chaos over the weekend as anti-ICE activists turned agitators turned rioters took to the streets to protest the will of the American people as carried out by the Trump administration. On Friday night, they rioted and many criminals were arrested. On Saturday, they kept at it as Trump called in the National Guard and by Sunday rioters were swarming the freeway, shutting down traffic, attacking cops, and setting fire to self-driving electric cars.

The point of sanctuary states and cities is not to protect illegal immigrant criminals from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but to force those officers out into the community, into harm's way, to ensure that when people see arrests they are chaotic and evoke empathy. These policies endanger officers as well as those they are seeking to arrest—and Democrats wouldn't have it any other way.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was notably absent as her city burned in January, came out to blame the Trump administration for the unrest on her city streets. Governor Gavin Newsom did the same, saying that it was Trump's fault that the city was awash with unrest after he declared the state a sanctuary for illegal immigrants and illegalized local law enforcement aiding federal agents. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has a home in LA and ambitions of a gubernatorial run, also blamed Trump, although in her case she was blaming the new administration for a problem her administration directly caused—some of those staging the direct action against ICE were funded by her administration's Department of Homeland Security.

While LA succumbed to the riots and protests this weekend, with illegal immigrants marching around waving Mexican flags and demanding to be allowed to stay in the country whose flag they notably were not waving, it is not the only city facing anti-ICE mayhem. Arrests were made in the sanctuary city of New York and in Boston, another sanctuary stronghold, Mayor Michelle Wu declared that Immigration and Customs Enforcement were basically neo-Nazis. Nashville's mayor has been accused of aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

The fact of the matter is that when we see riots, civil unrest, protest arrests, and the arrests of illegal immigrants at their workplaces and homes, this is Democrat elected leaders want us to see. This is what they want to have happen.

Having footage of illegal immigrant moms and dads arrested in sanctuary cities across the US is the Democrats' fantasy. So-called sanctuary laws in states like New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, California, and others mean that local law enforcement is prevented from working with federal law enforcement. When an illegal immigrant is arrested and released, local officials are forbidden from alerting ICE and handing that person off to federal officials.

What happens next? Those federal agents have to go into communities, out to homes and workplaces, to track down the person local law enforcement released. When ICE encounters that person out in the field, they are apprehended and arrested. If there are other illegal immigrants with that person, those persons are arrested and detained as well. The Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem has made clear that this will be the result, border czar Tom Homan has reiterated that—yet all of these Democrat elected leaders blame Trump, and not their own policies, when it happens.

Noem and Homan have repeatedly said that their goal is to arrest illegal immigrants who are guilty of crimes. The best way to locate and apprehend those criminals is for local law enforcement officers to let federal officials know when they have a criminal illegal immigrant in their custody and to turn that person over to the federal authorities.

In sanctuary states, however, they are prevented from doing that. This means that they must release that person back into the community, where they will go home, or to work. Once ICE tracks them down, they are arrested. Only at that point, instead of a peaceful handoff where a criminal is taken from one branch of law enforcement to another, we see screaming family members or coworkers who are upset at this total disruption. Then we see illegal immigrant advocacy groups stage direct actions to protest the enforcement of law.

That's what Democrats want us to see. In Massachusetts, Worcester city councilor Etel Haxhiaj interfered in an arrest of a Brazilian illegal immigrant with a criminal history. In Tennessee, state rep Aftyn Behn bragged about interfering in ICE actions. In New Jersey, Rep. LaMonica McIver was arrested for attacking ICE officers outside detention facility Delaney Hall.

If local law enforcement were allowed to hand the criminal illegal immigrant over to ICE, ICE would never end up out in the community, interacting with other illegal immigrants who hadn't committed additional crimes but are still eligible for deportation. The Democrats would never get their footage showing ICE agents looking barbaric out in the field making arrests in the street if they didn't stick to these insane policies.

If local law enforcement worked with federal agents to remove illegal immigrant criminals from the United States, if the entire process were orderly and transparent, Democrats would never have an excuse to allow chaos to unfold, to encourage their constituents to create conditions of violence in the streets, and these leaders would never get the chance to blame Trump for carrying out the will of the American people.