Rhode Island State Representative Enrique Sanchez — ‘Democratic Socialist of America’-endorsed, which tells you everything you need to know about his political philosophy — took to X this week to threaten federal ICE agents, proclaiming “your day of reckoning will come.” He added an oath for good measure.
The Department of Homeland Security’s response was immediate, documented, and devastating.
Rather than engage with Sanchez’s profanity-laden theatrics, DHS simply listed the criminals ICE has been removing from Rhode Island — the very people Sanchez’s rhetoric is designed to protect. A convicted murderer from Laos. A human trafficking convict from the Dominican Republic. A child sex offender from Laos convicted of molesting a minor, selling cocaine, and failure to register as a sex offender.
That’s a partial list. DHS posted several more. Each one a real person who committed a real crime against a real victim — and each one the kind of person that Enrique Sanchez apparently wants to keep in the United States rather than see deported.
Let’s be direct about what “your day of reckoning will come” directed at federal law enforcement officers actually is. 18 U.S.C. § 115 prohibits threatening federal law enforcement officers with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with them in the performance of their duties. Sanchez isn’t a private citizen venting anonymously online. He is an elected state representative — a public official — making explicit threats against federal agents on a public platform. That’s not protected political speech. That’s a federal statute with real penalties attached.
Whether anyone will pursue it is a different question. The answer is almost certainly no, which is exactly the problem. The tolerance for left-wing threats against law enforcement has reached the point where a state legislator can swear on his social media account that ICE agents face a reckoning and face no consequence whatsoever. Meanwhile, Libs of TikTok noted — as a pointed reminder — that Sanchez has a DUI on his record. A man threatening federal agents has a history with law enforcement himself. The irony is almost too perfect.
The DHS also noted something that should be part of every conversation about anti-ICE rhetoric: assaults against ICE officers have increased by 1,300% as a direct result of the demonization campaign the left has been running against federal immigration enforcement. Not a rounding error. Not a modest uptick. 1,300%. Every politician who calls ICE agents storm troopers, every activist who blocks enforcement operations, every state representative who goes on social media to threaten a “day of reckoning” — they are contributing to an environment in which federal officers are getting attacked at record rates.
Sanchez will probably be reelected. His constituents elected a DSA candidate who threatens ICE and that’s apparently what they want representing them.
But the rest of Rhode Island — and the rest of America — deserves to know exactly who is threatening the law enforcement officers keeping dangerous criminals off their streets.
DHS showed them. With receipts.
