Posted on Tuesday, October 29, 2024

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by Outside Contributor

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With violent crime on the rise, the past three years have been increasingly perilous for law enforcement officers.

In honor of National First Responders Day on Monday, it’s important to protect the brave men and women preserving public safety by sounding the alarm on the policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, which have endangered law enforcement and created a high violent-crime rate, with murder rates peaking in 2022 and currently remaining higher than pre-COVID-19 levels.

The FBI stated that nearly 200 law enforcement officers were killed while on duty from 2021 to 2023, setting the highest rate for officers feloniously killed within a consecutive three-year period, compared with data from the past two decades.

Since 2020, left-leaning politicians have advocated for the defunding of police, for open borders, and for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements that directly jeopardize law and order within the United States.

Harris publicly supported defunding the police during the 2020 nationwide riots that followed the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Before becoming Biden’s running mate, she claimed “defund the police movements rightly question police budgets.”

Dozens of cities—among them Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles—defunded their local police departments after the 2020 Black Lives Matter/Antifa riots. The cities later reversed themselves and increased law enforcement budgets after seeing a predictable increase in crime.

Under the leadership of Harris as border czar, the illegal-alien crime rate skyrocketed, in direct correlation with the masses of unvetted illegal aliens who entered the U.S. since 2021. Between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested 55,106 illegal aliens with a criminal background, or 33,170 more arrests than in fiscal years 2017 to 2020.

Not only do illegal aliens commit a variety of crimes, such as assaulting police officers, but rogue left-wing district attorneys often fail to prosecute criminal aliens. New York City Police Department officers protested earlier this year against the New York City District Attorney’s Office for releasing a group of illegal aliens who assaulted police officers in a brutal attack in Times Square. The DA’s office later indicted all seven individuals involved in the attack following the protests.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered a frighteningly high rate of criminal illegal aliens, leading to 1,084 illegal-alien assault charge convictions in the just-ended fiscal year 2024 alone. That compared with 299 convictions in 2020, so our nation has suffered a stark increase in crimes committed by foreign criminals.

DEI is another possible factor for the increased crime rate. The Biden-Harris administration encouraged the redesign of law enforcement training and requirements to be more “inclusive,” placing radical racial ideology above public safety.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, agencies have adopted DEI principles that have transformed their intended purpose, often redirecting public resources for the advancement of a leftist agenda. The Department of Justice, for example, stated in its Strategic Plan for Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion that the DOJ’s goals are based on “implementing effective practices to recruit and hire a qualified, diverse workforce in mission-critical occupations.”

Many law enforcement agencies have since replaced prior requirements for recruiting and training police officers with DEI principles highlighted in the DOJ’s strategic plan and have seen a subsequent increase in unqualified personnel.

These DEI requirements place first responders in danger and in some cases have severe consequences.

One example is the Los Angeles Police Department, which has taken a massive hit from DEI policies. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated a top priority for the LAPD was to remove “obstacles” for new police recruits in order to advance DEI in law enforcement, signaling an easier pathway to become a law enforcement officer.

Deadly shootings involving LAPD officers were up 142.9% from 2020, according to the LAPD, but that’s not the only type of crime on the rise. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Golden State’s crime rate has increased significantly, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

With the presidential election underway, polls show decreasing crime is a priority for all Americans. A Pew research poll found that 46% of registered Democrats and 76% of registered Republicans believe addressing the issue of violent crime is “very important” when electing the next president of the United States.

Public policies determine the way forward for our nation, but some of the leading policies of the Left—such as DEI, open borders, and anti-law enforcement efforts—have neglected the safety of first responders and put American communities at a greater risk for crime.

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Brandy Perez.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.