In recent days and weeks, multiple civilians have been killed during confrontations connected to immigration enforcement operations. In each case, the immediate facts differ. The pattern does not.

Individuals—some politically motivated, some convinced they were acting morally, some believing enforcement itself was illegal—inserted themselves into active law-enforcement environments. They resisted detention, interfered with operations, or escalated encounters with armed officers. They were shot and killed.

These deaths are not evidence of a sudden increase in brutality or a collapse of constitutional order. They are evidence of something more mundane and more dangerous: a widespread categorical error about how power, law, and protest actually work in a constitutional republic.

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What changed—and what did not

Federal immigration law did not suddenly appear. The authority to enforce it did not emerge overnight. The current administration made no secret of its intent to enforce existing law aggressively, and voters rendered a verdict. That outcome may be unpopular in some quarters, but it was not ambiguous.

What has changed is not the law. What has changed is the way political leaders, activists, and institutions are describing enforcement itself—increasingly framing it as inherently illegitimate, unconstitutional by default, or subject to nullification by moral objection.

That framing has consequences.

The category error at the center

A category error occurs when something is placed in the wrong conceptual bucket and then reasoned about incorrectly as a result. In this case, the error is straightforward:

• Policy disagreement is treated as legal illegitimacy
• Moral objection is treated as authority to intervene
• Protest is treated as operational participation
• Presence is treated as protection

None of those substitutions are true.

Disagreeing with a law does not suspend its enforcement. Believing an action is immoral does not make it unlawful. Showing up does not confer authority. And moral certainty does not alter threat-assessment protocols when armed officers are executing their duties.

The law continues to operate even when people believe it should not.

Civil rights, misremembered

The civil-rights movement is often invoked to justify confrontational “direct action” against enforcement. The comparison is usually incomplete.

Civil-rights leaders were obsessive—by design—about not crossing into interference. Protesters were trained to submit to arrest without resistance. They did not insert themselves into active operations. They did not attempt to physically disrupt law enforcement. They understood that once protest crossed into obstruction, the moral asymmetry collapsed.

The pressure that produced legislative change came from visibility, discipline, and restraint, not from interfering with live enforcement actions. Laws changed when lawmakers changed them—not because police were convinced mid-operation to stop enforcing statutes they did not write.

That discipline appears largely absent today.

From disagreement to collision

What is increasingly visible now is a different model: activists encouraged to “show up,” “protect neighbors,” or “bear witness” at enforcement sites, often without clear boundaries between observation and interference.

In practice, this means civilians entering kinetic environments—high-stress, armed, time-compressed situations—believing that moral intent will be recognized as a shield.

It is not.

Law enforcement does not evaluate ideology in the moment. It evaluates behavior: proximity, resistance, weapons, escalation. When those variables cross certain thresholds, force is used. That is not political theory. It is procedure.

People who believe otherwise are not brave. They are misinformed.

Institutional reinforcement of confusion

This miscalibration is not coming only from social media or street-level activism. It is being reinforced institutionally.

At the municipal level, symbolic resolutions increasingly assert contested facts, pre-judge enforcement actions, and blur the distinction between oversight and obstruction—without legal authority to do either. These gestures may feel expressive, but they also legitimize the idea that enforcement is presumptively suspect and fair game for intervention.

At the state level, proposed legislation has begun to stretch non-cooperation doctrines into arrest-protected zones, expanded “civil arrest” definitions, and liability regimes that raise the cost of enforcement near public buildings. Even when framed as neutrality, the effect is structural interference.

At the same time, legislatures are advancing bills enhancing penalties for assaults against protected professionals—recognizing, implicitly, that violence against enforcement and public officials is rising.

These two impulses sit uneasily together: rhetorically encouraging confrontation while legally bracing for its consequences.

The predictable result

The result is not reform. It is tragedy.

Educated, competent adults—some with no criminal history, some acting under a sincere sense of moral urgency—are making decisions that guarantee escalation. When those decisions end in death, the shock is palpable. The disbelief is real.

But the outcome is not mysterious.

When perceived injustice is treated as permission to ignore rules that remain in force, reality enforces them instead.

The democratic alternative still exists

None of this is an argument against dissent. It is an argument for aiming dissent correctly.

If enforcement priorities are wrong, challenge them politically. If statutes are unjust, change them legislatively. If rights are violated, litigate. If leadership is failing, vote them out.

That is how a democratic republic works. It is slower. It is frustrating. It does not satisfy moral urgency. But it does not get people shot. (in the U.S. anyways)

Targeting line-level enforcers—who do not write the laws, cannot change them, and must make split-second decisions under threat—does not advance reform. It advances funerals.

A final, uncomfortable truth

History is clear on this point: when societies normalize interference with enforcement while pretending it is speech, the casualties are not abstract. They are specific, named, and irreversible.

People are not dying because the law is unclear.
They are dying because they were told the rules no longer applied.

They do.

And they always have.

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Dave Soulia | FYIVT

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