NBC kicked off the new season of Law & Order: SVU by doing what Hollywood does best: vilifying law enforcement and romanticizing illegal immigration. The episode, “In the Wind,” went out of its way to portray Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the bad guys—raiding homes, obstructing justice, and even getting in the way of convicting a rapist.
The plot centers on an illegal immigrant named Ruiz, who witnesses a rape and agrees to testify. But just before the trial, ICE shows up at his building, leading him to flee. Prosecutors immediately accuse ICE of trying to sabotage the case. From there, the show transforms federal agents into villains who supposedly care more about deporting immigrants than stopping violent crime.
The script checks every box of left-wing storytelling. The accused rapist is a white landlord. Ruiz, despite a past drug arrest, is portrayed as a blameless victim of the system. NYPD officers bend over backward to shield him from ICE, with Captain Olivia Benson even getting arrested by federal agents for obstruction after trying to sneak Ruiz out the back door. At one point, a judge dramatically declares that ICE agents are “not welcome” in his courtroom—a line crafted to earn applause from the activist crowd, not to reflect reality.
But here’s the glaring omission: the show never mentions what ICE actually does for the safety of American communities. In real life, ICE has arrested thousands of dangerous criminals, including repeat sex offenders, human traffickers, and violent felons who prey on law-abiding citizens. These agents don’t “protect rapists,” as the storyline suggests—they take predators off our streets. Yet NBC flips the script to smear them as villains and to portray breaking immigration law as somehow noble.
This is more than just bad television—it’s part of a larger cultural campaign to delegitimize law enforcement and erase the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. By demonizing ICE, Hollywood feeds into the same rhetoric pushed by open-borders politicians who view enforcement of immigration law as optional. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans are left dealing with the real-world consequences of lax enforcement: higher crime, strained resources, and communities put at risk.
The fact is, without ICE, countless violent offenders would be walking free today. That’s a reality worth remembering the next time Hollywood decides to write another script attacking the very men and women who protect our nation.
