Public officials blasting ICE agents for going after criminal illegal immigrants are getting a harsh message from the feds: you’re backing the wrong horse.

Wilson Martell-LeBron was detained by ICE agents late last month outside the Boston Municipal Court Central Edward W. Brooke Courthouse — following the start of his trial for allegedly making a false statement on an RMV application and possession of a forged RMV document.

The feds claim that he’s an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, who’s allegedly named Juan Carlos Baez. They arrested him mid-trial and brought him to a detention facility in Plymouth, despite the Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden and Judge Mark Summerville’s stated attempts to have him returned to court.

Summerville dismissed the charges against Martell-LeBron “due to egregious and intentional prosecutorial misconduct.” He also found the arresting ICE agent in contempt of court.

“The judge in the case referred the matter to our court to consider whether or not we will be bringing forth any criminal charges,” said Hayden. “That’s under consideration. That’s under review.”

What’s not under review? The fact that hampering  an immigration officer’s efforts to enforce immigration laws is a felony.

U.S. Attorney Leah Foley didn’t hold back her ire. “The fact that you disfavor ICE officers doing their jobs is not a basis for criminal charges. In fact, there is no legal basis for such charges,” Foley wrote to Hayden.

She added it is “a felony offense to assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with an immigration officer’s efforts to duly execute the immigration laws of the United States.”

Foley added that taking action against an immigration officer is in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.

Stopping an ICE agent from doing his or her job isn’t resistance — it’s illegal.

Democratic leaders have made a meal of depicting ICE agents, and the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, as dark forces undermining democracy. That’s far from the truth, and the case of Martell-LeBron exemplifies what’s wrong with that thinking.

Boston’s top ICE official Patricia Hyde said that illegal immigrant Martell-Lebron had already served 11 years in jail for heroin and cocaine dealing before other drug charges were tossed in the Annie Dookhan lab scandal — and he altered his fingerprints to dodge identification.

This is who Hayden and Summerville are going to bat for? This is a person who shouldn’t have to “live in fear” of an ICE agent’s knock? Hayden said ICE’s escalating actions “jeopardize public safety.”

Drug dealers jeopardize public safety. So do people who keep criminal illegal immigrants from being deported.

It’s the duty of public leaders and law enforcement officials to uphold the law — even laws they don’t like. We’ve seen the fallout of policies that turn a blind eye to illegal immigration and the criminal behaviors of certain illegal immigrants.

Equating legal immigrants with those who came here illegally to do harm is a misdirection, and a dangerous one.

Honor the laws of the United States, and let ICE do its work.