During an appearance on “Meet the Press” with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, February 2, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem managed to brilliantly and entertainingly turn the table on Welker to obliterate the woke host’s claims about a supposed “fear” of deportation among legal immigrants.
For reference, President Donald Trump campaigned on taking a much firmer line against illegal immigration. He has since started following through on that pledge, with Border Czar Tom Homan pushing ICE into mass arrests and deportations of criminal illegal immigrants. Welker used that anti-illegal immigration campaign to ask the DHS secretary if legal migrants should be worried about potentially being “wrongfully detained.”
Firing back, Noem turned the tables and told her that the only reason they would think that, if indeed they do, is that the media has lied. She said, “I would say that if I’ve heard that expressed by people that are legal citizens of the United States, it’s because the media has perpetuated that fear. The media has said that that’s a possibility.”
Continuing, Noem said that the Trump Administration has done nothing to indicate that such deportations are coming, saying, “There’s nothing from this administration, from President Trump or from any of the law enforcement individuals in these communities that has said that they need to walk around and be concerned about that at all.”
Noem then shut down Welker’s claim by noting that this is what Americans voted for and they largely see it as a positive. As she put it: “The citizens of the United States are confident that finally, after four long years of having a president in the White House that ignored federal law and endangered their communities, that there’s a different man in charge now. There’s a man in charge who loves this country, is going to help make their communities safer. These citizens that live here are thrilled.”
Building on that, Noem noted that even in the deep blue city of New York, residents were glad to see immigration enforcement happening and thanked her and the officers for what they were doing. She said, “In fact, when I was in New York City earlier this week and in several cities since then, the people walking by us on the streets were thanking our officers.”
Continuing on that point, she noted that those residents were happy that they no longer had to live in fear of illegal immigration, saying, “They were thanking these investigators and those that were taking these dangerous criminals out for being there, for making sure that they could walk their kids to school with a new confidence that they could get there safely and that they could do business and have their community back.” Watch her here:
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In a post on X about a similar subject on Wednesday, February 5, DHS Secretary Noem said she refuses to apologize for deporting criminals, saying, “I will make no apologies for working hard to remove murderers, r*pists, child abusers, and gang members from this country. Yes, these criminal aliens are DIRTBAGS.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video