Former acting head of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf squared off against CNN anchor Boris Sanchez on Tuesday over the issue of deportations, after being asked why authorities are arresting people who’ve entered the country illegally.
You’d think the answer is simple, right? Yet Sanchez begged to differ.
The Daily Caller covered the exchange from an episode of “CNN News Central,” pointing out how ridiculous it was for Sanchez to continually ask about the value of enforcing federal immigration law. Especially when Wolf had already answered the question.
“I wanted to ask you about one aspect of this analysis of ICE data,” Sanchez said. “In some states, like Massachusetts, 78 percent of those arrested in community raids had no criminal record. So I wonder how sweeping up these non-criminals makes communities safer.”
Wolf said the Trump administration is focusing on people who’ve committed additional crimes but added that it couldn’t ignore those who are violating federal statues by entering the United States without permission.
“We saw that during four years of the Biden administration where they said, ‘We’re not going to deport. We’re not going to arrest and therefore deport certain classes of illegal aliens here in the United States,’” he shot back.
Wolf added, “Unfortunately, what that does is it just encourages more and more of those types of individuals to come to the country knowing that they’ll never be deported.”
This is known as the deterrence factor. If dangerous criminals who plan to illegally cross the border see they’ll get arrested for doing so, they’re less likely to go through with it.
On the other hand, if they see the federal government allowing everyone who came across the southern border to stay, we’d be overrun by millions of people. A simple concept, yes? Unfortunately Sanchez couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
“If this is about deterrence, as you alluded to, and you’re detaining students and folks that don’t have priors that are here in the United States — just living the American dream and working and may have overstayed a visa — … then what exactly are you deterring?” he asked Wolf. “Because those folks aren’t a public safety threat, right?”
Wolf replied, “I think what you’re deterring here is the fact that individuals knowingly break U.S. law, knowingly stay in the United States when they have no legal right to be here.”
“That’s the type of behavior that you want to deter,” he explained. “You want folks to come into — not only to have folks come into the United States legally, but to stay here legally.”
Wolf also addressed Sanchez’s point about overstaying a visa, saying the onus is on the visa holder to stay up to date and be legally compliant.
Sanchez kept pushing, however, and highlighted how farmers rely on labor from illegals, going so far as to claim the nation’s “food supply depends on them.”
“ICE is raiding farms,” Sanchez added. “Are they not?” Wolf responded, explaining that ICE was given a federal mandate to deport anyone who has entered America illegally and that if Congress wants to change the law to focus only on dangerous criminals, they’re free to do so.
“ICE is doing its job,” Wolf replied, “which is to say they are removing individuals that don’t have a legal right to be here.”
Sanchez just couldn’t let it go and proceeded to paint certain illegal aliens as hard working saints.
“Why round them up when there are folks out there who have committed crimes and who likely would be — their removal likely would make the community safer?” he asked.
“I feel like I’ve answered this three times,” Wolf told Sanchez, indicating that they were going in circles because he’d already answered the question several times.
Yikes. It’s not rocket science. It’s the law. If you enter the country illegally, you should be removed and placed at the back of the line — especially if you don’t have a rare skill to offer the economy.
The problem with the “hard working” illegal immigrant argument is that it presents too much of a risk. Bad actors can use that excuse to blend in. Then once they’re inside the country, they’re armed with government funding, legal status, and the ability to harm American citizens.
By treating everyone equally, we take things back to square one. This reestablishes that people must come through a port of entry, fill out paperwork, and pay their taxes. Most importantly, they should be forced to compete fairly with others for the same opportunity to chase their dreams, rather than jumping the line.
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