SAN DIEGO — When I heard that a sniper had opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas, I was disheartened and concerned. But I wasn't the least bit surprised.

The agency has been drawing a lot of attention to itself over the last several months as its agents desperately try to fulfill an arbitrary and absurdly high quota of 3,000 arrests per day. As the immigration raids continue, cruelty is the point and due process is a foreign concept.

The shooting took place in the early morning of Sept. 24 at the Dallas ICE field office. The suspect — who was identified by authorities as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn — fired on a transport vehicle, killing one detainee and critically wounding two others. No ICE officers were hurt. Jahn — who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound — left behind unspent ammunition with the phrase "ANTI-ICE" scrawled on it. Authorities are investigating the incident as a "targeted" attack.

Former congressman and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — advised the members of his party to not "let a crisis go to waste."

Following the murder of conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk, and this latest act of political violence against ICE in Dallas, Republicans are more determined than ever to take Emanuel's advice.

After the attack on the ICE facility, Vice President JD Vance pounced.

"You don't have to agree with my immigration policies. You don't have to agree with Donald Trump's immigration policies. But if your political rhetoric encourages violence against our law enforcement, you can go straight to hell," Vance said.

"If you want to stop political violence, stop attacking our law enforcement as the Gestapo. If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi. If you want to stop political violence, look in the mirror. That's the way that we stop political violence in this country."

I guess there aren't any mirrors in the U.S. Naval Observatory (which acts as the official residence for the vice president and his family).

If there were, Vance could stare into one of them and see himself defending free speech (after Kirk's murder) and bemoaning the fact that too many Americans get offended too easily (after a comic at a Trump-Vance rally told a racist joke about Puerto Rico).

Vance attended Yale Law School. But when politics commandeer his brain, you really have to wonder if he ever cracked open a textbook while he was there.

Americans have to be free to criticize federal officers. What are these people if not the arm of the state? If people can't speak out against government agents, they can't speak out against the government itself. That's the opposite of what the Founders had in mind.

In the last two weeks, President Donald Trump has signaled that he intends to use the full weight of his administration to dismantle liberal groups that he doesn't like and which don't care much for him either. Trump claims these groups encourage violence against conservatives.

As the son of a retired cop who was on the job for 37 years, let me be crystal clear about one thing, the most important thing: There is absolutely no excuse for violence against law enforcement officers, whether that violence is "political" or otherwise.

In fact, I've always believed that crimes against police should carry a "special circumstances" enhancement. It's quaint to think that all lives are equal. But that's not the case. After all, if enough police officers were killed, our society would descend into anarchy.

I said much the same thing in July 2016 when another terrible sniper attack occurred in that same metropolis in North Texas. Five Dallas police officers were killed and seven were wounded in an ambush. The assailant was 25-year-old Micah Johnson, an African American Army veteran, who was upset at killings of African American men by police and "wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."

At the time, I wrote: "Shortly after last week's ambush of police officers in Dallas, many of my followers on social media were imploring me to control my rage. But as the son of a cop who spent 37 years on the job, I pushed back and asserted my right to be furious."

Now, I'm feeling a different kind of fury — at charlatans and opportunists who are slimy enough to use violence against law enforcement to behave like outlaws.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: David von Diemar at Unsplash