Bleeding Minnesota

In the 1850s, Senator Stephen A. Douglas had argued in favor of popular sovereignty, a system where the people of a state would decide whether slavery would be legal or not.  This idea was tested with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  Though both states were north of the previously agreed upon 36th parallel, the act allowed them to organize how they chose.  Unsurprisingly (well, it must have been a surprise to Douglas & President Franklin Pierce), abolitionists and pro-slave forces flooded into Kansas.  Murder and mayhem followed: Bleeding Kansas.  John Brown was quite active, gaining his fame or infamy depending on one's point of view.  It is agreed that this was a big step on the way to Civil War.

Today, the question is illegal immigration.  Again, we have a popular sovereignty where some states encourage illegal immigration and protect those immigrants from deportation.  The term Sanctuary City goes back decades.  There are many who are strongly opposed to illegal immigration.  Unlike the case in the 19th Century where slavery was not only legal, but Constitutional, illegal immigration is clearly illegal.  There is no argument in favor on the basis of law.  Sanctuary cities have always been enabling lawlessness, which the federal government has tolerated to varying degrees.

Just as the slavery question grew more and more contentious as the 19th century progressed, the issue of illegal immigration has done the same.  One could argue that Donald Trump won both his elections on that issue alone.  Trump is to illegal immigration what Lincoln was to slavery.  Why is illegal immigration so important to those who support it?  They would claim human decency.  That is no more convincing than when slave owners declared their slaves to be too stupid to take care of themselves.  No, there are several benefits.  First, illegals count in the census, which is why there was such a ruckus when Trump tried to get a question about legal status on the 2020 Census.  If one accepts the long-stated 12 million illegals, that is 16 seats in the House of Representatives, even if illegals don't vote.  If they do vote (and many have), they are going to reliably vote for the pro-illegal immigrant party (i.e., Democrats).  Then there is the money.  As has been exposed with the Somali daycares, a lot of money is supporting illegals in America.  How much of that gets kicked back to political campaigns or activism?

Much as the American South had built a culture on exploiting slaves, the Democratic Party of today has built a system that exploits illegal immigrants.  Like the slave, the immigrant doesn't have recourse to law; he will be deported.  The illegal immigrant is just a variation of the same old Democratic playbook: cheap labor and greater electoral representation.  Just as they resorted to violence to protect and extend slavery in Kansas, they are resorting to violence in Minnesota.  ICE represents that abolitionists.