CNN's Brianna Keilar pushed back hard Tuesday on a former Trump official's claim that President Donald Trump had to make a new "policy call" by allowing some undocumented migrants a "temporary pass" to remain in the United States to fill certain jobs.
Keilar asked Chad Wolf, Acting Homeland Security secretary during the first Trump administration, "Is that just an admission that the American economy relies on labor from undocumented immigrants, and that they need work visas even if they're here illegally? Even if you are putting them in the same category as criminals who are here illegally?"
Wolf said the president had to weigh "all these different considerations" to keep the workforce at capacity.
"But that's not new, right, Mr. Wolf? Has he been failed by his advisors if he's only learning now what policymakers, including Republicans, have known for decades — that undocumented immigrants are essential to the U.S. economy?"
Wolf answered, "If you look at four years of the Biden administration, you'll see absolutely no one removed, right? Which is why we're in the crisis that we're in today."
"That's not true and you know that," Keilar interjected. "You're saying no one was removed in four years?"
"Excuse me? I really don't think you understand what you're talking about here at all," Wolf snapped.
"You're saying no one was removed in four years, period," Keilar asked again. "Just be clear. Explain what you're saying — no one was removed under the Biden administration from the United States who was undocumented?"
"The vast majority of removals from the Biden administration happened at the border. They were removing almost no one from the interior of the country," Wolf said, adding that's the main reason the American people voted for a second Trump administration.
Wolf continued, "They're not going to exempt all individuals from the law, right? So, if you say we're only going to remove criminal aliens and that's it, we're going to stop. Well, then, you invite a whole class of individuals to come into the country and not to offend and say, well, you're not going to be removed."
