In the wake of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) horrifically arguing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has “assassinated” 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, the leftist protester who was shot after she allegedly tried to run over an ICE agent during a protest in Minneapolis, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons sounded off.
AOC’s anti-ICE rage, for reference, had been sparked not just by the shooting itself or her general dislike of ICE and its mission, but by Vice President JD Vance sounding off on the leftist media for its instinctive defense of Good and what she was up to. The VP both hammered the media and warned that organized leftist networks are attacking ICE.
Firing back at him over his comments, AOC snapped, “I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not, and that is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I.” She added, “I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
It was in response to that commentary from the far-left New York lawmaker that ICE Director Lyons fired back, saying that her claims about what ICE and the agent involved in the shooting has done during the Minneapolis protest incident were horrific, and unfairly characterized an agent’s quick reaction to being attacked.
Beginning, he told Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing” that the video shows the agent had mere milliseconds to respond to a car that lurched toward him, saying, “Look at the video, look at this situation. It wasn’t an assassination. That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not a short time, to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents.”
Continuing, Director Lyons argued that the vast number of leftist-launched attacks on ICE that we have seen over the past year show why the agent would have been so worried, and argued that leftist politicians are responsible for those awful attacks because their rhetoric has stirred them up. “I think a lot of the political rhetoric is where we’re at right now in the first place. There’s just so many attacks on ICE and, unfortunately, it does come from a lot of elected officials,” he said.
Further, he explained that the various sorts of rhetoric about fighting and resisting ICE that have been pushed by leftists are causing major issues and are firing up radicals to attack federal agents, which is abominable. He said, “For elected officials to call upon the impediment of ICE, to resist ICE, that only stokes these fires and gets these individuals who aren’t trying to do the right thing when it comes to ICE… [it] gets them fired up more.”
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Lyons also, during an appearance on Fox, fired back at the leftist sheriff who threatened to arrest ICE agents, saying, “You can’t pit a local law enforcement officer against a federal law enforcement officer … My message to the Sheriff is try it, try to arrest my folks. Let’s see what happens.”
Watch him here: