A free society runs on two things most of us claim to value, no matter what yard sign we put out every two years: the consistent enforcement of the law and leaders who don’t pour gasoline on public fear.
When either one fails, tensions rise. When both fail simultaneously, escalation stops being a surprise and becomes the expected outcome.
We’ve watched that pattern unfold around immigration enforcement.
There is a real and important distinction between lawful protest and unlawful obstruction. People have every right to criticize federal policy, rally, chant, march and speak their minds. But blocking officers, boxing in vehicles or interfering with arrests crosses a legal line. Even reporting sympathetic to “ICE watcher” groups acknowledges that while monitoring and recording agents are generally protected, tactics like trying to block ICE vehicles can move into potential obstruction territory.
That’s the national picture. Now bring it home to Washington.
Washington’s rhetoric problem isn’t hypothetical. This weekend in Seattle, thousands gathered at Cal Anderson Park for an “ICE Out for Good” rally. Fox 13 reported that Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson addressed the crowd and said, “First, we uphold laws that prohibit our local law enforcement from collaborating with ICE.” King County Executive Girmay Zahilay went further, telling the crowd: “I also commit to you that our sheriffs will not make immigration-related arrests on behalf of ICE.”
If you support the “sanctuary” policy, you can cheer those statements. If you disagree, you can express your criticism. But either way, understand what’s happening: top officials are publicly drawing a bright line that local government will not assist federal enforcement beyond what state law requires.
Then came the rhetoric. Mayor Wilson issued a statement describing “ICE activity” as “abuse,” and referred to the Minneapolis shooting of Renée Nicole Good as a “murder” by federal agents. Those are loaded words — especially “murder,” which is a legal conclusion, not a protest chant. When leaders use criminal-label language about law enforcement before investigations are complete, they inflame the public atmosphere, whether they intend to or not.
The state-level messaging has been no less heated. Earlier this month, Washington House Democrats’ Members of Color Caucus Chair Chris Stearns said federal immigration officials tapping state databases “terrorize our communities.” Again, you can agree with the policy goal of limiting cooperation. But “terrorize” is not neutral language. It frames enforcement as illegitimate violence, not a lawful (even if controversial) federal function.
And these aren’t just words floating in the air. Washington has been in a very public fight over data sharing and enforcement channels, specifically access to driver and licensing data through Nlets.
KOMO reported a joint statement that ICE access to Department of Licensing data through Nlets was ultimately shut off on Nov. 19, 2025, after the governor’s office directed agencies to cut it off earlier, and that since then, “thousands of attempted queries from ICE have been denied.” The Spokesman-Review and others have also reported that a UW human rights report documented cases of immigration arrests following Nlets queries.
So yes, Washington officials are actively trying to constrain federal immigration reach in practice. That’s their right as long as it’s within state law. But here’s the problem: when public officials combine policy resistance with high-voltage rhetoric, talk of “terror,” “abuse” and insinuations that people are being “kidnapped,” they create a climate where some citizens feel morally licensed to “do something” in the street.
That’s the road to obstruction, confrontation and eventually violence.
If you want to be taken seriously on “law and order,” you can’t play favorites.
On the left, the line is simple: peaceful protest is protected; obstructing law enforcement is not. Blocking vehicles, trapping officers and interfering with arrests, none of that becomes virtuous because the crowd believes the cause is righteous.
On the right, the line should be just as simple: vigilantism, threats and violence are never acceptable. And neither is the kind of rhetoric that treats public servants as targets. Even the Department of Homeland Security, hardly a neutral narrator, has publicly blamed “radical rhetoric” for an increase in assaults against ICE officers. Treat that claim with appropriate skepticism, but don’t ignore the underlying truth that demonizing language tends to invite retaliation. In other words, if you want the temperature to come down, stop rewarding the behavior that turns the temperature up.
Here’s the part that should bother people across the political spectrum. The Insurrection Act isn’t a talking point; it’s a warning light.
If federal agents cannot perform their duties because they are being obstructed, threatened or placed in danger, and if local authorities cannot or will not keep order, the president does not lack options. One of the options sitting on the shelf is the Insurrection Act, which authorizes a president to use military forces domestically in narrow, extreme circumstances when enforcement of federal law becomes impracticable through ordinary means.
That isn’t theoretical. President John F. Kennedy invoked it during the 1962 crisis at the University of Mississippi. And President George H. W. Bush invoked it in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots.
I don’t want this country anywhere near that point. Not even close. Because once you start talking about extraordinary federal powers to restore order, things tend to get worse before they get better. Trust collapses. Resentment hardens. Normal civic life becomes a standoff.
But pretending that escalation can’t reach that level, especially when leaders encourage public panic about law enforcement, doesn’t prevent it. It invites it.
The public takes cues from leaders. When leaders frame enforcement as “terror” and “abuse,” they shouldn’t be shocked when some citizens decide the law no longer deserves respect. And when citizens decide that, escalation doesn’t need a grand conspiracy. It just needs one bad moment and a crowd that’s been told to expect the worst.
If we want to avoid the kind of “emergency powers” era nobody should want, then the work starts earlier: with restraint, clarity and a civic refusal, left or right, to excuse the behavior that pushes us toward the edge.
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Chad Taylor is publisher and co-owner of The Chronicle. He can be reached at chad@chronline.com.
