A reporter accused Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of "undercutting" promises to detain immigrants who were "the worst of the worst" by instead arresting non-criminals.
"We've seen, outside immigration court here in New York City, people still with pending green card claims, pending asylum claims are grabbed right outside of court," the reporter told Noem at a press conference on Monday. "So my question is this: I understand you're saying you're targeting mostly violent people. Are you not undercutting your own argument when you arrest those others?"
"Absolutely not," Noem insisted. "What we're doing is we're targeting those individuals that are perpetrators of crimes in this country, those who have final removal orders, those who have undergone due process and are needing to be removed from this country."
The DHS secretary argued that the "biggest problem" was that the sanctuary cities did not honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requests to detain certain people.
"Local law enforcement isn't cooperating with us to honor those so that we can get these individuals off the streets, so we're going to continue to do that work every day," she explained. "Unfortunately, here in New York City, it's a different situation because here people play politics and then you have innocent people get hurt, and that shouldn't happen anymore."
