CNN's Audie Cornish challenged a conservative panelist to justify President Donald Trump's increasingly unpopular immigration crackdown in the wake of a fatal shooting in Minneapolis.
The Department of Justice has decided not to investigate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer's killing of 37-year-old Renee Good, while several federal prosecutors resigned rather than investigate the victim's widow, and new polling shows the public has recoiled from the violence captured on video of the enforcement actions.
"Let's get to the legal point of this, though," Cornish said. "You're saying you don't have to respond, so let's say you don't respond and they say you're not cooperating. Smash, smash – now you're in an altercation you don't want to be in, right?"
Elliott Williams, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general and former senior official at ICE, said there's not much a target can do legally until after an interaction with immigration agents.
"Your recourse down the road is ultimately to file a lawsuit over whether it's the violation of your rights, the violation of your search and seizure rights, the damage of your property, which could take years," Williams said, "and it's actually not practical."
Cornish then turned to The Daily Wire's Rob Bluey, who she has seen defending ICE on social media.
"Let me let Rob get a word in, because sometimes I go online and you're out there saying online, like, 'This is good, I'm glad the president is going after these illegals,' and I don't hear you addressing these kinds of questions, which is if you're someone who's not in this dragnet, what are your rights?" Cornish said.
"Look, I think that ultimately, Audie, a lot of this could have been solved had the local law enforcement in Minneapolis had a better control of the situation," Bluey replied.
"Are you going to start carrying papers, Rob?" Cornish interrupted. "Are you going to start carrying, like, Real ID?"
"The fact is, he doesn't have to," interjected New York Times podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro. "I mean, my daughter said to me in the car yesterday, 'Hey, mom, we're Hispanic – do you have to carry ID now? Should I carry ID? Are we going to be stopped? Are you going to be taken away?' I mean, you know, this is the reality here, where maybe for you, you won't be stopped and you might not be dragged out of your street. But there are swaths of people we are seeing native Americans."
"But let him answer this, because I am genuinely curious," Cornish said. "No, I'm curious."
"But again, I think we need to take a step back," Bluey insisted. "We wouldn't be in this situation if we didn't have, what, 10 million illegal immigrants coming to this country during Joe Biden's four years? Donald Trump was crystal clear during the presidential campaign of 2024 that he was going to carry out the largest deportation in United States history. That is what he is doing right now."
Cornish pointed out that Republicans would be held responsible for Trump's actions as they make their case to voters in November's midterm elections, and she added that polling shows most Americans believe ICE has made cities less safe.
"Yeah, it's definitely going to be one of those issues," Bluey argued. "In fact, there are there's a debate within the Democrat Party, as well, over whether or not they want to go all in on ICE or whether they should keep the focus on affordability and health care and other issues."
Cornish then reminded the panel that conservatives were suspicious of the Real ID's nationwide implementation just a few years ago.
"I just wanted to make sure that, like, you got a chance to answer this because it's one of those questions that within MAGA circles, I remember the Real ID argument," she said. "We shouldn't have to carry documents, like, we shouldn't have to have – do you remember covering this? It was like a story about paperwork that turned into a story about civil liberties, and these same people are saying, well, maybe you should carry something. Maybe you should prove you belong here."
Williams then drew on his personal experience working for ICE to dispel Bluey's argument.
"The one thing I would say is, having worked at ICE for five years, is, yes, the president was not shy about saying this is going to be the most massive deportation effort in history," Williams said. "The problem is that the agency is not equipped to handle that, and when you end up – there's no, I mean, so, for instance, under the Obama years, you're talking about 400,000 removals a year, which was unprecedented. A lot of people, if the president is talking about removing a million people a year, that's necessarily going to involve, number one, hiring agents who are unfit to carry out their jobs. Number two, engaging in pretty rampant violations of civil rights in order to hit those kinds of targets that the president is talking about. So, yeah, the president is more than welcome to ramp up or quadruple the country's immigration enforcement, but we are not equipped to do so in a lawful, efficient manner."
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