SAN DIEGO — The time has come for Americans to think long and hard about the increasingly fraught relationship between ICE and local police officers.

Actually, it's been time for a while now. For more than a year, these two entities have been quietly butting heads.

The first round of shots was fired in October 2025. In Chicago, as part of Operation Midway Blitz, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed pepper balls and chemical agents at protesters who gathered in a public park. The crowd included Chicago police officers, who had to be treated for injuries.

I think that a lot of these poorly trained, fly-by-night ICE agents resent local cops because they're something that the ICE agents will never be: real police.

Once Americans come to understand that ICE agents aren't real cops, they need to ask the following question: What responsibility do legitimate police officers have to rein in these outlaws as part of their sworn duty to protect and serve the public?

If you bristled at the word "outlaws," you should follow the news more closely. Since June 2025, when President Donald Trump unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement on U.S. cities — but only those run by Democrats — ICE agents have violated people's civil rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

According to ProPublica, since the beginning of the second Trump administration, immigration authorities have detained more than 500 U.S. citizens and held without charges more than 100 people whose U.S. citizenship they questioned. And here's a curious fact: Most of the people they detained or held were people of color.

According to media reports, ICE agents have been told by their supervisors that they can do whatever they want, and that they don't have to worry about being reprimanded when they step over the line. Not surprisingly, when they interact with the public, they don't care about due process, restraint or professionalism.

And accountability? Well, that is just another big word that most ICE agents don't understand. With the backing of the Trump administration, ICE agents have defied federal court orders and lied to FBI agents who investigated cases of alleged misconduct.

Individuals — ranging from undocumented immigrants to green card holders to U.S. citizens — have been punched, manhandled, thrown to the ground, and seriously injured. ICE agents have terrorized families, zip-tied children, and killed U.S. citizens.

According to the National Immigration Project, so far this year, at least 29 people have died in ICE custody. In 2025, as many as 33 people died.

On Oct. 17, in Long Beach, Calif., masked ICE agents in unmarked vehicles struck a 40-year-old U.S. citizen named Ricardo Gonzalez while he was riding his e-bike. They tased him twice, pinned him on the ground, knelt on his back, and handcuffed him — all while he was screaming that his arm was broken. When Long Beach police officers showed up, they took the handcuffs off Gonzalez and took him to the hospital.

On Oct. 8 in New York City, ICE agents shot and wounded 28-year-old Oscar Belgal while he was sitting in his car. Belgal was shot in the neck. Luckily, his 5-year-old son — who was in the backseat — emerged unharmed from this near tragedy.

Like I said, ICE is a band of outlaws. Can we continue?

Back to the question: Once Americans come to understand that ICE agents aren't real cops, what responsibility do legitimate police officers have to rein them in and hold them accountable as part of the officers' sworn duty to protect and serve the public?

Local police departments all around the country could take a lesson from how they do things near my hometown in Central California.

There is a jurisdictional tug-of-war in Fresno, Calif., after 32-year-old ICE agent David Gonzalez allegedly assaulted a 72-year-old homeowner who wound up shooting him before he was arrested by Fresno police officers. A native of McAllen, Texas, Gonzalez traveled to Fresno in order to participate in one of those ICE surges that the Trump administration claims aren't happening. He went to a bar with other agents to spend their bounty money, got falling-down drunk, tried to walk back to his car, passed out on the homeowner's lawn and then became belligerent when told to leave. Gonzalez allegedly attacked the homeowner and his daughter before being arrested and jailed.

The Fresno Police Department refused to turn the disgraced agent over to ICE. Instead, the Fresno County District Attorney's Office has now filed criminal charges against the scofflaw.

That's what I'm talking about. Well played, Fresno.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Martin Podsiad at Unsplash