A veteran journalist confronted a Republican congressman on "CNN This Morning" over the violent crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) appeared Thursday morning on the program and justified the officers' actions, which have included the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good and other violent acts.
"Well, first of all, it's a tragic situation, what's happening in general in Minnesota, and the genesis of my opinion is the fact that you you have a criminal element that was let out of jail back into the community," Haridopolos said. "It's incredibly frustrating."
Host Audie Cornish pressed the GOP lawmaker to explain who he was talking about, and Haridopolos argued that ICE was needed because the state and local authorities had failed to apprehend violent criminal and sexual predators.
"We have sanctuary cities right now that allow these criminals to run in the streets, and the goal should be to extract them," Haridopolos said. "This is the same thing done under Republican and Democrat prior administrations, but you have these issues where you have a mayor who is so politically, let's just say, involved, that he thinks it's a good idea to put these folks in the middle of all this. We're just talking with your panelists. My father is a former FBI agent. I always respected law enforcement, in general. But the other part of this is if there's a situation where a law enforcement officer is in the process of arresting a violent criminal, the last thing you want to be is in the middle of that action."
"Would your father have used a chokehold on people or shot at a window at 90 degrees?" Cornish interjected.
"Well, I think well, first of all, let's focus on why they're there," Haridopolos replied. "They're there because the law enforcement in that community will not keep a person in jail who's committed a violent act or a sexual act against a child. These are look at the arrest records."
The congressman then met pushback from another panelist.
"That's not who ICE is actually arresting these days," pointed out journalist Garrett Graff. "You know, I think one of the things that is important is ICE is a 20-year-old agency at this point. It was able to do this work under Republican and Democratic administrations, even the first Trump administration, while maintaining the moral legitimacy with the public. There is something that has changed in this last year in the way that ICE is sort of randomly grabbing people off the street."
Cornish then gave Haridopolos a chance to respond, and asked whether he saw a difference between the way ICE was operating now compared to the past, and he argued that the officers themselves were the victims in this situation.
"Well, I think what we're seeing a lot of is you're seeing a lot of paid protesters who are creating a lot of this chaos, again, with the tragic situation," Haridopolos said. "I think it is tragic what happened to that young lady who was killed in recently in Minneapolis, but she put herself right in the middle of the action. I think that is the thing. The other thing that I also think about these ICE agents who were doing their job, they have husbands and wives who are worried about them when they go to work, and they're seeing that people are doing all types of things towards them. They're creating this chaotic situation, and I would hope that the mayor might take a different stance."
Cornish noted that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has repeatedly called for protesters to stay home and tried to keep the peace in his city, and Haridopolos faulted him for wearing after Good's killing.
"Last week he used the big the big four-letter word talking about, to gin people up," Haridopolos said, and Cornish asked which word he meant. "Oh, I think we all know."
- YouTube youtu.be
