It’s a strange kind of feeling when a driverless car pulls up next to you at a stoplight — with no one inside. You’ll see them all over San Francisco, as my fiancée and I did last fall.

But as unnerving as it is to wait longer to turn into a parking lot because you can’t make eye contact with a nonexistent driver, not even Waymo cars deserve what’s happening to them in Los Angeles — tagged with graffiti, windows smashed, the whole thing lit ablaze.

Four or five in a row, apparently summoned just so rioters could destroy them. Waymos are electric, too — so dousing them with water could make it worse.

Talk about dangerous. But it’s just one example of the chaos erupting during the 2025 LA riots, sparked by protests against ICE raids and arrests of illegal immigrants.

Far worse are the brazen attacks on law enforcement — vehicles targeted, rocks thrown at officers and their vehicles, reports of agents trapped and accosted by mobs.

It all calls to mind the “mostly peaceful protests” of five years ago — including destructive riots across the country, rationalized for supposedly serving a righteous cause.

This time, President Donald Trump isn’t letting the chaos fester and spiral out of control. He’s called up the California National Guard.

Gov. Gavin Newsom objects, claiming Trump is “manufacturing a crisis” to justify “more fear, more control.” He insists this is nothing more than a post-football game celebration run amok.

Nonsense. If Newsom were paying attention to his own streets, he’d realize this isn’t exuberance — it’s coordinated chaos, deliberately escalated into violence for political effect. As LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said, “This thing has gotten out of control.”

Agree or disagree, Trump is acting within federal law. There are times when military deployment on US soil is legal and warranted — like the LA Riots in 1992 under Bush 41 or enforcing civil rights under Eisenhower and Kennedy.

Here, Trump is justifiably invoking federal law authorizing him to use a state’s National Guard when it becomes “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States… by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.”

Of course, this isn’t ideal. Deploying military troops for domestic order carries considerable risk. Clear limits must be established. But just as the National Guard should have been called to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, it’s necessary to protect communities now to ensure things don’t get out of hand.

Now, the question arises: Could Colorado be next — even though we’re a sanctuary state?

Over the weekend, a coalition of radical-left groups announced an “Emergency March and Protest!” to Aurora’s ICE facility on Monday for “solidarity with those protecting their community from ICE in Los Angeles.”

Hopefully by the time you read this, Aurora hasn’t descended into another 2020-retread riot. But even if not, leftist organizers also planned an “EMERGENCY PROTEST: FROM LA TO DENVER: ICE OUT!” Tuesday evening at the state Capitol.

Will Denver and Aurora join LA in a rioting redux?

If so, the irony would be thick. Gov. Jared Polis now says he’s willing to comply with an ICE subpoena on unaccompanied minors potentially tied to child exploitation and abuse — but just weeks ago, he signed a law explicitly undermining such cooperation with the feds.

As The Denver Gazette editorialized, Senate Bill 25-276 is “another brazen effort by the Legislature to decriminalize illegal immigration, courtesy of the we-don’t-need-no-stinkin’-borders fringe among ruling Democrats.” It bars state and local governments from sharing “personal identifying information” with federal immigration authorities.

Polis doggedly denies that Colorado is a “sanctuary state,” despite signing multiple laws even before SB276 that say otherwise, explicitly restricting law enforcement from proactively cooperating with ICE.

Let’s be serious about where Polis stands — because he sure isn’t.

When local authorities withhold information from ICE, they don’t just block enforcement — they block a path to legal status. “Cancellation of removal” helps long-term, law-abiding migrants with families, but it hinges on proving continuous U.S. residence. Without records, that case falls apart because, as former Denver ICE field director John Fabbricatore told me last year, the paper trail vanishes.

Meanwhile, ICE continues to prioritize a backlog of 600,000 criminal targets, 300,000 overstays a year, and 1.4 million under final deportation orders.

Critics can reasonably argue that Trump’s tactics are going too far, and peaceful protest is a cornerstone of the American ideal. But no one can say he’s skirting his mandate to prosecute one of his central promises: reining in illegal immigration.

Unlawful and destructive riots demand a decisive response. For the second time in five years, lives and property are at stake in the name of social justice — only this time, rioters are waving foreign flags and burning American ones.

Here’s hoping Colorado averts the blaze — and if we don’t, that leaders from Gov. Polis to Mayor Johnston don’t pretend it’s just another rowdy night in Denver.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.