A CNN panel exploded into argument on Friday morning, after conservative Terry Schilling defended the ICE actions under scrutiny regarding the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.
Schilling opened with a disparaging response to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who threatened legal action over the shooting. "Game on," he said.
"You want to sue over this?" said Schilling. "I guess we'll have to sue over the hundreds of thousands of young men and women in this country that have died from fentanyl overdoses or, or even the hundreds of people that have had violence inflicted on them that have been raped and sexually assaulted."
Schilling then added, "There were seven deaths by ICE and 11 deaths in 2024. That's when there was like no immigration enforcement at all ... so it seems like there's some violence embedded into illegal immigration in the first place."
Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams had a sharp retort to Schilling's claims, pointing out that he had experience working with ICE, and the idea there was "no immigration enforcement" in 2023 is "just not accurate."
"You're still talking about deporting 400,000 people a year, even under the low points of any administration's immigration enforcement efforts," said Williams. "More enforcement is happening now than happened in 2023. But ... I don't think that that those numbers are reflective of enforcement simply not happening in detention centers."
New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro chimed in, adding, "I will also saythat the implication thatsomehow enforcement is violentand therefore these deaths aresomehow acceptable is, is not acceptable."