Where were you on that humid July night when a Customs and Border Protection officer, out on his own time, was ambushed beneath the George Washington Bridge? He wasn’t wearing his badge; he wasn’t “the face of an oppressive regime,” as fashionable radicals would sneer. He was simply a man enjoying a summer evening when two predators, both illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic, approached. In an instant, gunfire erupted. The agent took a bullet to the face and another to the arm, drew his service weapon, and shot back, striking one assailant. That he stayed in the fight is a testament to his courage.
Those who lionize open borders and sneer at police should linger on the names. Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, illegally entered our country on April 4, 2023, was arrested repeatedly for grand larceny, assault, and criminal contempt, and was ordered deported. New York City’s “sanctuary” laws forbade local authorities from holding him for federal agents, so he was set loose again and again. Christhian Aybar Berroa, has eight prior arrests for robberies between March and April last year. These two should never have been on our streets. Yet in the progressive worldview, defending the nation’s borders is xenophobic, and cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is anathema. When a CBP officer bleeds in the dirt of a Manhattan park, those ideologues look away.
Order is the first need of liberty. Without the thin blue line, police, deputies, and Border Patrol agents, there is no republic, only the war of all against all. In the 1960s, when liberal jurists and radical activists cheered on urban riots, middle America recoiled and demanded law and order. Our cities were saved only when mayors and governors gave the police back their authority and resources. Today’s sanctuary city policies are a rerun of that tragic script. By forbidding the NYPD to inform federal immigration officials about dangerous foreign felons, local politicians have invited mayhem. As Homeland Security officials noted, Mora’s rap sheet included multiple arrests and even a final order of removal, yet the Biden administration released him, and New York’s sanctuary rules kept him on the street. That decision nearly cost a federal officer his life.
The usual suspects will insist that this shooting was an isolated tragedy and that linking it to immigration enforcement is demagoguery. They will argue that sanctuary policies encourage trust between immigrants and police. Nonsense. Laws that shield violent criminals from deportation have nothing to do with trust and everything to do with appeasing a vocal, open borders lobby. They betray the legal immigrants who waited in line and the citizens who are robbed, assaulted, or, as on July 20, shot. They endanger even the police. Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former cop, admitted that Mora and Aybar Berroa “should have been deported months ago”. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem bluntly asked, “How many more lives will it take” before public safety becomes a priority in our largest cities? When a liberal mayor and a conservative secretary agree, it is time to acknowledge reality.
Our media elites will lavish more ink on the alleged “systemic racism” of policing than on the heroism of the men and women who rush toward danger. Yet when a 42 year old CBP officer is ambushed, he is the embodiment of the “thin blue line” that stands between civilization and barbarism. He didn’t ask the political affiliation of the bystanders; he didn’t ask the race or immigration status of his attackers. He drew his weapon and defended himself and, by extension, every innocent life in that park. Contrast his conduct with the politicians who tie his hands. The same voices who cry “defund the police” are responsible for the revolving door justice that put Miguel Mora back on the street.
We have been here before. In the 1990s, New York turned itself around by empowering the NYPD to crack down on quality of life crimes and by cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Crime plummeted, public spaces became safe, and the city thrived. The lesson is clear: when you support law enforcement, the law supports you. When you denigrate the police and shelter criminals, the criminals take over.
America is in a moral fight over whether we will remain a sovereign nation or a borderless landmass where violent men roam free. Our police are not the problem; they are the answer. When they are under attack, whether by criminals or by the fashionable elites who despise them, we must rally to their side. That means ending sanctuary policies that protect violent illegal immigrants, giving officers the resources and respect they deserve, and remembering that the price of disorder is measured in blood. We owe that much to the CBP officer who bled under the bridge that night, and to every guardian who stands the watch.