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The media outrage is itself outrageous.

President Trump’s renewed pledge to deport huge numbers of illegal immigrants is inspiring anger, but it’s hardly righteous. If, as a Homeland Security adviser has explained, the targets of Trump’s deportation plans will be those illegal immigrants who have failed to show for their assigned court hearings, then Trump is morally, ethically, and legally justified in deporting them. The tut-tutting chorus might as well spare us their faux moral histrionics.

The immigrants Trump is targeting are people who have broken American law not once but twice. First, they entered the country illegally, without papers. Second, when given a court hearing (where they could, for example, make bids for asylum or otherwise make a case for being allowed to stay), they again thumbed their noses at the legitimate authority of their generous hosts. Such poor guests deserve no sympathy, no matter what circumstances they came from.

The United States bends over backwards in trying to afford due process of law to immigrants. It holds them to comparatively lenient standards for turning illegal entry into legal status (see, for example, chain migration). Still, a sovereign nation has every good reason to protect borders and to insist that it know who is crossing its border and why. No matter what status or poverty these immigrants claim to be escaping, simple respect for their new host nation demands that they pay heed to its legal procedures.

No American can skip court hearings with impunity. Why should immigrants, especially illegal ones, be allowed to do so?

It is not heartless to demand basic obedience to our laws — especially from people who claim they want to make this their home.

A mass deportation order does not preclude moderate immigration policies in other respects, nor does it preclude reforms that would improve the process for entering the U.S. in a legal fashion. Even if Trump’s promise quickly to deport “millions” of illegal immigrants may not be logistically feasible, the order to expedite their arrests and deportations is a necessary step.

One of the greatest strengths of this great nation is its strong rule of law. That strength depends upon laws enacted by delegates of the citizenry being enforced. If immigrants will not respect this rule of law, they have no business spending another day in this blessed land that the law protects.