Word got out through social media posts this week that ICE is planning a surge in sanctuary states, and Oregon officials are already squawking about it. MSN reported the story after the agency's plans started circulating online, and the reaction up in Salem has been exactly what you'd expect from people who spent years making sure their state became a comfortable place to hide.

My problem with the whole hand-wringing routine is simple. Oregon passed its sanctuary law back in 1987, the first state in the country to do it. That's nearly four decades of telling federal immigration officers they're on their own inside state lines. Now the people running that state act surprised that federal officers might show up in force anyway. What did they think was going to happen? If you build a welcome mat, don't act shocked when folks walk on it.

I live 40 miles from the border in Kinney County, Texas. We don't have sanctuary anything out here. We have stash houses, cut fences, and water troughs drained dry by people passing through at 3 a.m. So I'll admit my patience for sanctuary city theater is thin. When an Oregon leader says they "fear more arrests," I read that as fearing the law might actually get enforced in their jurisdiction. Strange thing to be afraid of if you ask me, but nobody did.

The mechanics matter here. Sanctuary policies mostly mean state and local cops won't hold people for ICE past their release date, and won't ask immigration status during routine stops. ICE can still operate anywhere in the country. Federal authority doesn't stop at a county line some commissioner drew with a sharpie. All a sanctuary policy does is force ICE to go out into the community to make arrests instead of picking people up quietly at a jail. More officers on the street, more traffic stops, more operations at workplaces. The sanctuary crowd never seems to grasp that their own policy produces the exact street-level enforcement they complain about.

The social media posts about the surge are light on specifics, which is normal. ICE doesn't usually telegraph operation dates, and half the time the chatter is designed to make people nervous. It works. Smugglers and stash house operators watch this stuff too, and I've seen the traffic patterns shift on our place within days of a big announcement. Word travels fast when there's a reason to move.

What I'll be watching is whether the surge produces actual deportations of criminal aliens or just headline numbers. Anybody can run up an arrest count if you're grabbing whoever's standing closest. The operations worth a damn target the smugglers, the gang members, and the repeat crossers. The rest is padding, and I've got no use for padding.

Oregon will complain. Portland will hold a rally. Some sheriff will give a speech about community trust. And ICE will keep working, because a state law can't tell a federal agent to sit down. Everybody involved knows it. What they're really afraid of is losing an illusion of control they never had in the first place.

Out here we fix the fence, call in what we see, and let the tally speak at the end of the season. Oregon might try it sometime. Works better than a press release.