Begin ringing the warning bells, citizens. Donald Trump is coming and he’s going to deport your “undocumented immigrant” friends… for no darned reason at all. That seems to be the message coming out of the amnesty camp these days. At Route Fifty they have an article this week by Teresa Wiltz (originally published at Stateline) which raises the ghost of immigration fights past. Will there be a newly enhanced immigration force? If so, they may be planning to deport all sorts of people who really aren’t such bad eggs.

Wiltz starts off by telling the story of Mayra Machado, who was picked up during a traffic stop in Arkansas. An unpaid traffic ticket led to a quick background search which revealed she’d previously been taken in for writing bad checks. Oh, and she’s also in the country illegally, so now she’s facing imminent deportation to El Salvador. The author adds in another tragic tale of a guy from Kenya who came here on a student visa but overran the expiration date. (He also did nine years in detention after a robbery charge.) He’s being deported also. That leads to these observations:

The two situations illustrate the variety of crimes that can get immigrants detained and deported, even after they have served a jail or prison sentence for the crime — and even if they are in the country legally. And while the federal government says it targets noncitizens who are serious or repeat offenders, immigrants with minor offenses often are deported.

Immigrants with criminal records may soon come under increased scrutiny. Republican President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to immediately deport “the people that are criminal and have criminal records.” There are, he said, “a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country.”

All of the code words in this article are predictable and common among amnesty proponents. The government is “targeting” people. Some of those being deported are only charged with “minor crimes.” No matter what Trump winds up doing on immigration you can expect to see these sorts of stories repeated ad nauseam in the press, always highlighting the one person they find who came from truly tragic circumstances in their original home and who committed the least serious offenses possible.

There’s a rather crucial observation missing from this story, however, and likely from all those to follow over the next four years. It doesn’t matter how “serious” the additional crime you committed here was. It could be murder or rape or robbery. It could literally be a ticket for a busted taillight. I add this only for the benefit of those who aren’t terribly concerned with critical thinking on this issue. You see, we don’t deport people for committing murder. We throw them in prison. We don’t deport you for stealing a television. We put you in the local jail for a few months. We don’t deport people for having a busted taillight. You receive a ticket and you can usually get it tossed out with no points on your license if you get the light fixed and go show it to the cops.

We deport people who are in the country illegally.

The only reason that we’re not currently deporting every single illegal we come across is that we simply don’t have the resources, the money or the manpower to do it. What these liberal authors seem to be getting confused over is the fact that we’ve been prioritizing the deportation of the felons who are the worst of the worst. That doesn’t mean that we can’t deport the rest of them, and if we do manage to boot out somebody who “only” wrote some bad checks or blew through a stoplight, that’s just a bonus. Because it’s not the crime you committed today which is getting you sent home. It’s the fact that you don’t belong here and you are breaking federal law simply by remaining here and breathing the air without the proper permission and documents.

Seriously, guys… this honestly isn’t all that complicated. Complaining about Trump deporting people who have done something less serious than murder or sexual assault is complaining that he’s enforcing the law.