Today was ICE raid day in nine cities across the country. I shouldn’t know that. You shouldn’t either. Most importantly, illegal immigrants with active deportation orders shouldn’t know it, nor should the Democrats and progressive activists working to thwart the efforts of ICE.

When the dust settles, I can almost guarantee the “millions” of deportations promised by the President last month will not be achieved. In fact, it’s unlikely this batch of raids will even reach quadruple digits. I wouldn’t be shocked if the number of illegal immigrants captured on Sunday doesn’t break into triple digits.

Unless there’s some sort of political 4D chess being played here, this official and well-publicized beginning of ICE raids will prove to be fruitless. The reasons are obvious: You don’t announce when or where they’re going to happen. Moreover, you don’t declare when they stopped. In fact, they should never stop.

President Obama was able to deport three million illegal immigrants, all the while being a reluctant executive of the team tasked with enforcing the law. He half-heartedly went after illegal immigrants through ICE and deported more than any president in history. Why, then, is the Trump administration missing the mark so often? Because they’re playing politics, though I’m not sure what that particular game may be.

I’ve tried to read through the 4D chess explanations, most of which center around trying to either pressure Democrats to act (they won’t) or get the media to blame Democrats for failures (they won’t). The only conclusion I can come to is there are too many illogical voices chirping about in the President’s ear because I can’t imagine he would willingly play this extremely important hand the way it’s being played without bad advice pouring in.

Here’s how ICE raids should happen:

Don’t announce them. When the last round of ICE raids were cancelled following a leak to the Washington Post of when and where they would take place, I assumed there was someone in the White House acting against the President’ wishes. But it seems that happened again, but this time there were no delays and all reports are saying the raids are underway with limited success. Don’t limit it to certain cities. Why are only nine cities being targeted? More importantly, how do we know about which cities are being hit? It’s clear there are many cities who have expressed an unwillingness to help, so including them on a list does nothing the benefit ICE. If we really want to enforce removal orders, we let the evidence of concentrations of illegal immigrants guide us, which is why these nine cities were picked. Don’t stop. When this batch of ICE raids are over, we can assume all illegal immigrants with removal orders have been caught, right? No, of course not. Forget setting timelines. The raids should continue until the job is done or resources have been depleted.

And therein lies the real problem here. The reason a particular date was selected along with the nine cities being targeted is because resources are not unlimited. It’s unfortunate that law enforcement agencies like ICE must pick and choose where and when to do raids based upon available budget, but this is the real world and government actions always come at a price.

It’s good that focus has been placed on removal of illegal immigrants set for deportation. It sends a message to Central America that we’re willing to enforce our laws. But next time, let’s not announce the raids. Just raid and deport. Done.

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