'I'm not being hyperbolic!' CNN anchor clashes with ex-Trump official on new crackdown
CNN's Boris Sanchez clashed with former Trump administration attorney Jonathan Fahey over the reported plans for a massive immigration crackdown in Chicago, which has drawn heavy opposition from Illinois leaders and is widely speculated to be Trump's excuse to enact military law enforcement similar to how he did in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Sanchez opened the discussion by outlining the scale of the proposed operation.
"So, this large immigration enforcement operation in Chicago involves armored vehicles, potentially the deployment of the National Guard, using Los Angeles earlier this summer as sort of a model for deployment," said Sanchez. "The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, has called this 'the militarization of a city.' What would you say is the justification for this?"
Fahey quickly responded, framing the operation as a necessary measure against what he described as sanctuary policies.
"Well, the main justification ... [is] Chicago and Illinois, they're sanctuary cities and a sanctuary state, meaning they keep criminals, illegal aliens that commit crimes in the United States," said Fahey. "They don't even cooperate with ICE to deport them. So J.B. Pritzker, you know, he is doing this because as a Democrat, you have to do two things to be in good standing. One, be full on open borders and illegal immigration, and two, oppose Donald Trump at every turn. But this is the way they have to combat Chicago and the fact that they will not even turn over criminals to ICE ... It will make Chicago safer, make the United States safer, and it'll also be a deterrent to more illegal immigration coming in."
Sanchez pressed further, noting that a federal judge had already blocked certain actions by the administration aimed at enforcing sanctuary city policies.
"A federal judge has blocked the administration from certain steps that it's taken to try to alter what you're describing as the sanctuary city policy or sanctuary state policy of Illinois," said Sanchez. "Those have been blocked. Things like threatening funding and things of that nature. What you're saying is that effectively this is another step to get a municipality to do what the White House wants."
Fahey dismissed that characterization, insisting the focus was public safety rather than political maneuvering.
"No, it's another step to get illegal aliens, criminals removed from the country because a municipality won't cooperate," said Fahey. "And yeah, there are those lawsuits, but these sanctuary cities are doing things that are bordering on the edge of what's called alien harboring, which is a federal criminal statute. When you're doing things to incentivize illegal aliens to come to the country or to stay in the country, that's a violation ... When you're doing things to shield them from ICE custody, that's also a violation. So, they are really skirting both the criminal law and civil law here. But the administration is doing, they're putting public safety first, which is a marked change from the prior administration, which was all illegal aliens all the time. Didn't matter if they were committing—"
Sanchez interjected and challenged Fahey’s description.
"You're, you're being hyperbolic," cut in Sanchez.
But Fahey stood by his statement and pointed to what he described as a continuation of lax deportation policies under the Biden administration.
"I don't think so," shot back Fahey. "Their policy, they would not even, they would not even deport illegal aliens convicted of aggravated felonies unless they met other characteristics other than just being an aggravated felon. So, they were not deporting anyone. They were incentivizing that—"
"I get that you're being hyperbolic..." continued Sanchez.
But Fahey doubled down.
"It's not being hyperbolic. That's actually their policy," said Fahey.
"If you want [to claim] that Democrats are for full open borders, we've spoken to numerous Democrats who've supported, for example, the bipartisan Senate bill that was attempted to pass in the last administration, the last year of the administration that had all kinds of funding for ICE, that allowed the president given certain quotas to shut the border," said Sanchez, referencing the border security legislation shut down after Trump, then running for president, lobbied the GOP against giving Biden a policy win.
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