The way today’s Democratic Party tells it, ICE and border patrol agents are out terrorizing innocent immigrants for no good reason at all.

But there is a very good reason the United States must have professionals patrolling the southern border and checking for the legality of anyone entering the country: dangerous criminals.

The latest examples are a border patrol bust of MS-13 gang members and child sex traffickers in the Rio Grande Valley Sector that took place last weekend. The bust nabbed dangerous criminals who could only bring harm to innocent Americans.

The multi-stage investigation netted busts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as Breitbart reported. It involved law enforcement officials near the border towns of Roma, Hidalgo and Encino.

Weslaco Station agents arrested a suspected illegal immigrant near Alamo, Texas, on Sunday, according to Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. After taking the Mexican man to the station for processing, agents discovered that Missouri’s St. Peter Police Department had previously arrested the man for statutory rape in the second degree; a Missouri court had convicted him and sentenced him to one year in prison.

The day before, agents at Falfurrias Station — about 80 miles inland from the border — apprehended a Guatemalan man near Encino. The area is a well-known human smuggling drop-off location, Breitbart noted, and agents soon learned that the Boston, Massachusetts, Police Department had arrested the man in 2003 for indecent assault and the battery of a child under the age of 14.

Later that afternoon, McAllen Station agents arrested a Salvadoran man near the border town of Mission, Texas. During a background investigation, officials confirmed the Salvadoran was a member of the violent criminal MS-13 gang, Breitbart reported.

Rio Grande City agents arrested another Salvadoran man near Roma, who also turned out to be an MS-13 member, while a Salvadoran man picked up at the border over the weekend is a member of the violent 18th Street gang.

McAllen agents found another Salvadoran male near the border community of Hidalgo, and his record revealed MS-13 allegiance as well.

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The above list comes — incredibly — after an ICE official, Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Matthew T. Albence, actually had to explain to Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) during a Senate hearing on Tuesday why entering the United States without documentation is illegal.

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“No, ma’am — they are there for violation of Title VIII of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, OK?” Albence informed Hirono. “That’s illegal entry; it’s both a criminal and civil violation. They are in those [detention centers] pending the outcome of that civil immigration process. They have broken the law.”

Let there be no confusion.

There is a reason for U.S. immigration law, and that’s to ensure the people who enter this country are who they say they are — and not violent criminals like those apprehended in these border patrol busts.