Demonization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not only out of line, it is a failing to see the true problems that require its attention, according to acting ICE Director Tony Pham on Newsmax TV.
"No, we're not the problem," Pham, a Vietnamese refugee from Saigon, told Tuesday's "The Chris Salcedo Show." "The problems are the individuals who have a complete misunderstanding of what ICE's equities are and want to fabricate some false narrative of what our employees do on a regular basis."
Pham leads the much-maligned agency that might come under some scrutiny in a potential Biden administration that could seek to unwind its work after four-years of an immigration hardliner in President Donald Trump.
Host Chris Salcedo succinctly asked what Pham would say to critics like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who see ICE "as the problem."
"I have the question of those individuals that have a complete misunderstanding of what ICE does," Pham began in a pointed defense of his agency and its agents. "Is ICE the problem when we are interdicting thousands of pounds of fentanyl that's coming across the border?
"Are we the problem when we are stopping mass amounts of human smuggling coming across our borders?
"Is ICE the problem when we are in fact stopping sex traffickers and traffickers of children from entering the United States and bringing victims into the interior of the United States?
"I ask them that they answer this question: Are we the problem when we are out there doing interior enforcement operations, focusing and targeting violent criminal aliens who have prior convictions and are being released back into our communities? And we are out there at this point, running multiple operations, finding those individuals, re-arresting them – using our ICE and immigration authorities – then place them in removal proceedings so we can remove them from the United States.
"Are we the problem when we do that, when all we're trying to do is protect our country, protect our American citizens, and protect our communities?"
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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