President’s mandate for action

Deploying heavily armed National Guards to restore order on the streets of Los Angeles may not be a good look for Donald Trump’s America. But his pledge to take a tough line on unwanted immigration was crucial to his big win in last November’s election. And polls since he returned to the White House show overwhelming public support for him doing so. Mr Trump has a strong mandate to take the action he ordered at the weekend when 2000 National Guards were sent to confront rioters protesting raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hunting illegal migrants, many at their workplaces or homes.

Rounding up and deporting what could be millions of illegal migrants was never going to be easy, as the LA riots confirm. And it would be fanciful to think that snatching illegal workers from their jobs and homes would not provoke a backlash, given the ICE agents’ reputation for heavy-handedness.

There are, The Wall Street Journal pointed out, “risks for both sides” if there is widespread violence and it triggers a full-scale military response. Despite the mandate voters incontrovertibly gave Mr Trump, there is a need for caution. To his credit, he has already – in the five months he has been back in the Oval Office – done much to mend the mess bequeathed by Joe Biden’s disastrous open borders policy, which waved through at least 10 million illegal immigrants. With the border effectively closed to migrants using dodgy asylum claims, crossings have slowed to a trickle. ICE has also arrested dangerous gang members and others accused of crimes that have outraged Americans.

The difficulty facing Mr Trump is that many of those who have arrived in the US illegally have since led law-abiding, productive lives. They have formed families and have jobs that employers say are already hard to fill in hospitality, agriculture, construction and healthcare.

It is no surprise that after Mr Biden held the border open, Americans want Mr Trump’s policy fulfilled. Other countries, such as the UK, which is being challenged by unwanted arrivals, would empathise. But the challenge to Mr Trump is to fulfil his promise while limiting civil unrest and not damaging the economy. Democrats are reportedly stirring up the protests and California Governor Gavin Newsom, for one, appears to have forgotten the lessons of previous riots, caused by the failure to shut down rioting hard and fast before it gained momentum. Americans want illegal immigrants sent home. But Mr Trump must use his mandate wisely in an effort to avoid worse riots than those seen in LA so far. Difficult as the process is, however, it would only have become harder if the borders had been left open for longer.