And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fbr LST, make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Harry Phones, Department of Homeland Security Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, on the ever increasing peril of being an ice agent in sanctuary cities. Harry, thank you so much for joining us in this edition of the Realist Radio Hour.
Of course, Matt happy to join you. Well.
Thank you. I know you've been extremely, extremely busy. Give us the latest now on what is happening in Minneapolis after last week when a woman there, Renee Good, looks to according to video, appears to have struck an ice officer with her vehicle. The ice officer then, in a move to protect himself, fired his weapon and fatally shot Miss Good. Of course, a lot has happened since then. If you wouldn't mind. It is an update on first and foremost where all of that stands today.
No, of course, Well, you know we all saw on Friday that new video that was released showing the view from the officers perspective. I think that really cleared up a lot of the misconceptions that were about this. You know, we been extremely clear that we are supporting our officers, and I think that video does a lot of justice that this individual followed as training. You know, anybody else in that situation you would have fear for your life looking at Since then, one of the big things the
Secretary was actually in Minneapolis that night. She said the same thing is this is not going to deter us from doing our job. And we've had officers deployed there since this. They are making arrests, they're enforcing the laws in this nation. They are unfortunately again you've seen the videos that have been coming out of Minneapolis since then, they are not facing support. They are facing attacks against them. Almost every day there's been some type of an assault
on federal officers. We're still seeing vehicles being used against officers. Last night we saw fireworks being launched against officers. This is not this is this is a very hostile situation, and it's feeds into all the attacks that our officers are facing, and it's just it is very despicable. It's sad to see this because again, their core mission is they are trying to make American community safer. They're enforcing
laws in this nation. They're getting the worst and the worst out of our out of our communities, and that's something you know, especially from the Department. We're trying to highlight a lot. You know, we're finding murders, rapist, gang members. They're doing this cross country, but we are continuing to do that mission in Minneapolis, and we are not going to be deterred.
Yeah, Harry, I wrote a piece for the Federalists this week and it begins this way, calling all rational Americans, I mean, no matter what your view is on policy, take a look at the videos. Understand what is happening here.
Here are the thieves, child rapist and murderers. The left latest false martyr was fighting for Renee Good, the thirty seven year old radical fatally shot last week by the Immigrate and Customs Enforcement agent she appears to have struck with her SUV was part of a leftist resistance movement that tried to stop ICE from arresting criminal illegal immigrants like Hernan Cortes Valencia, the Mexican foreign national who had a final order of removal dating back more than nine years,
has been convicted of sexual assault against a child, sexual assault, carnal abuse, and four DUIs according to DHS. And the list of these awful, awful people go on and on. That ultimately, to those of us watching here and wondering why all of these massive and violent protester going on in Minneapolis and elsewhere, that's who they're trying to protect, it appears to us, is that the case as you see it.
I mean that's how I see it. I think that this is a two part is. One is you're seeing the tactics that are being used against the officers, so you obviously have the impeding our operations. You know, anybody, every child, if you talk to them, is you know, should you be trying to stop an officers or trying to arrest a criminal. A child would be able to tell you no, that's something that you shouldn't do. You know, they're they're threatening. Our agents are facing in eight thousand
percent in death threats. The assault rate is obviously up that we always talked about is thirteen hundred percent increase in assaults. There's been a three two hundred percent increase in vehicle attacks. And the mission our officers are trying to do is what you just said. We're trying to get criminal, bad guys off of the street who they're defending.
You know, we just sent out earlier today some of the folks that we've arrested in Minneapolish we got an armed robbery of a business, uh in decent exposure, selling meth, selling cocaine, criminal sexual conduct. These are the people that they're trying to prevent us from getting out there. And I just think it's totally ridiculous that if you were to ask, you said, it's the call for sanity and the call to reason is if you were to ask anybody is would you want to be helping or hindering
the officers getting these people off the streets? Most people should say I would want those people out of my community.
M Yeah, and understandably. So take a look at their their long and violent criminal rap sheets. There these are, as we said, killers, rapist, child molesters. It's just it's amazing. Are you surprised by any of this given the years of folks like Governor Tim Walls describing ICE agents as Trump's new Gestapo.
You know, and we have been calling for this the entire time. So there's there's two parts with this. Is it's the rhetoric you're seeing out of these left point politicians. They're spearing our officers. You know, if you are just being constantly everything, everything, every day, our officers are being compared to the Nazisans of the Gestapo, which is just wrong.
That should be that should be stopped. Like I mean, I graduated with a history degree, Like these guys do not know their history clearly, right, and that just is upsetting. But the other part is is these guys are going into like the reason we are in Minneapolis is because these politicians aren't doing their job. We're having to go in because they're sanctuary jurisdictions and they don't want to
work with law enforcement. These officers are putting their lives on the line to clean up these communities that have literally made the laws that are forcing them to go into it. You know, somebody I want to quote is you know with Chief Bavino with Border Patrol is out of Minneapolis, and he has said this really best. He just was in an operation in New Orleans and they're was one assault because they were able to work with
the local police departments. We've already seen more than I believe it's two dozen assaults in a week on officers, and it's because they're not able to actually work with it. We want to work with state and local governments. We have a great you know, in the midst of all of all that is going on, I also like to
highlight the good. We have a robust program, it's called the two eighty seven G program where we are working with state and state and local jurisdictions across the country, which is, hey, a guy goes into a local jail, they do an immigration search, so hey, we've got a criminal. They let us know and we're able to take care of it so that that person is not released back
into the community. And it's because of these sanctuary policies that we can't do that in a place like Minneapolis, so we have to send officers in there to again enforce the laws of the nation.
So what do you think of the sort of allegations you're hearing from the likes of Tim walls, and do you think that maybe he has a vested interest in his constituents in Minnesota and the rest of the country talking about something other than the massive Somali welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota right now, Well.
I think we've all seen a lot of the facts having to do with this fraud scandal, and you know, I kind of want to leave that there. Each a SI which is under us is doing investigations. One want to get ahead of it. What we're seeing certainly raises my eyebrows. But I think that there is this this is the consequences of actions has happened, which is that, Hey, there's all this rage of we're going to say we want sanctuary jurisdictions. We're going to do this without any consequence,
it doesn't cost anything. We're just going to appeal to this rhetoric. We're going to appeal to to you know, these really radical ideas of we're just not going to enforce the laws of this nation, and that is we're not letting that stand. We are going to enforce the laws of this nation, and so that's forcing us to come in. And this is a consequence of again, their actions. So we're going in there and doing that. You know, we are going to go in and get criminal legals
out of there. I kind of think it's probably embarrassing when it is, Hey, these guys that you are trying to demonize are having to go in and clean up your community, you know. I think that that's the really big thing. Again, I always want to stress is we don't have to do this in a lot of other parts of the country because people are actually working with us, and that's what law enforcement is about. Here, we have to because they aren't working with us.
Like a halfway decent attorney, I asked some questions. I know the answers to, but what do you think would have been the response from the politicians in Minnesota, the leftist politicians across the country and Minnesota and Minneapolis resident in general had it been the other way around, had Missed Good killed the ice officer with her vehicle, Well, I.
Don't want to get too much into hypothetical, but I hope they would have condemned it. And that's something that again, the rhetoric is only encouraging action against our officers. It would be really nice to see our leaders stand up and say, hey, let's not demonize these brave men and women who are putting their lives on the line to do this. We should be thanking them. Friday was Law
Enforcement Appreciation Day. I don't think that we're getting a lot of thanks from the far left politicians that are spreading this kind.
Of rhetoric, No, no doubt about that. And there's a there's a great video out there. I'm not sure if you've seen it, Harry, but it really drives I think this whole point home. There's a gentleman in I believe it's in Minneapolis. He walks up to some ice agents and he says, folks, listen, I'm not choosing sides here,
but I know you have a very difficult job. I want to pray over you, and I want to I want to pray that that you conduct your mission and you're you're able to be safe and effectively come home to your families, because that's really what it is. At the end of the day.
I want to say thank you for what you're doing.
All the suburb or prank for everybody, but.
Also for you, and just thank you. It's it's not easy. We're not taking sides in any of this, but we know that it has not been easy for you guys. He's your protection, the blessed your conversation to thank you for his confidence. They'll just blessed him and Ben say the Lord betrayed for a journey that there would be loved being the people in the offices in Jesus.
What a stark contrast that is, Harry, to the sort of vitriol we're seeing on the streets of Minneapolis by a certain percentage of citizens of this country. Yeah.
I haven't seen that exact video, but I think that that sums it up, is that, you know, we should be praying for these officers. I do every day, and again I'm very thankful when I get to talk to them, and we would hope that people would be thanking them for what they're doing. It shouldn't be this demonization. What people forget is that these officers are husbands, wives, brothers, sisters,
They have families. They are waking up every day and doing the job that they signed up to do, and it's for a noble purpose, which is to enforce the laws of the nation. And I keep breaking back to that because you hear this that they're they're racist, they're doing these things just because of this or that. It's no. We are a nation of laws. They're enforcing it. They signed up to do this. I'm sure there are a lot easier jobs out there than what they're having to
do every day that they could be doing. But instead they're waking up, they're doing what's right, They're doing their job, and I think that that's them. Again, I haven't seen the video. That's a sentiment that should be out there more versus the rhetoric that we see about these guys and guys and women. And just at the first response by to many people ish you're a Nazi.
Right, that's their first response to all of this. And as you said before, know your history first and foremost. Our federalist radio hour listeners may be familiar with this,
perhaps not. But the ice officer involved was in a similar situation, I believe, back in June in a suburb of Minneapolis, where a criminal illegal immigrant ICE was trying to apprehend, ran over him and dragged him in the vehicle for I believe fifty yards according to the DHS report, What must have gone through this gentleman's mind as he was facing what seemed to him and to many of us, a clear and present danger.
Yeah. I mean again, that video that came out on Friday, that's from the officer's perspective is night and day. Everybody I've talked to and I go, what would you have done in that situation? You can see that now it's it's light and day. It takes away so much of the issis that we're made against the officer the only and I can only imagine, you know, all the things that we're seeing, I mean, the amount of death threats he's getting, and again it's not just him, it's all
of our officers. A six I'm sorry, it's an eight thousand percent increase in death threats wow against officers, staggering. The amount of assaults every day. When you're waking up to go do your job and you've got that high of a percentage that you're going to interact with somebody who's going to try to assault you while you're doing your job, I can only imagine. I mean, it has toway heavy. But these guys are men and women are going out there every day and doing doing what they're
supposed to. And again we should be thanking them because we see the fruits of their labor, which is all these criminals that are going out. You know one thing I'd like to highlight. Obviously, we put out a lot of press releases. We have a website. We actually just added five thousand new criminal legal aliens to it yesterday. It's wow dot DHS dot gov. Wow dot DHS dot gov. And we've created a database where you can go in, put your state in, and you can see just some
And this is not not a full database. It's just some of the criminals that we have we have gotten under this administration. And you look at all them and you would think, man, I'd like to thank the person who got that person out of my state. I don't know how you can look at it and go, yeah, I think we probably should have let it. Just like you said, we probably should have not allow a murder or a rapist to just keep remaining in a community.
Our guest today on this edition of The Federalist Radio Hours, Harry Owns, Department of Homeland Security Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, talking about the increasing peril of being an ICE agent in sanctuary cities, and certainly Harry's laid
out the case for it. I've seen the website. It's remarkable and obviously we at the Federalists have been covering the stories of these very violent criminal illegal immagates, again not just illegal immigrants, but individuals who have committed great offenses against individuals and society, and it just again it makes you wonder as it relates to Minneapolis though, and some of the demonstrations we've seen obviously that the situation in Portland comes to mind, if you could give us
an update on what went down in Portland, because even the police chief there, through tears, oddly enough, had to acknowledge the fact that the two individuals who were shot the other day in Portland were also violent criminal illegal immigrants and they were involved in a very violent gang.
I was going to say, not just criminals, members of TDA, which is a terrorist organization, terrible gang, right, kidnapping, drugs, murder. This is not people, and I think that that's pretty obvious.
So you know, the quick recap of that is Thursday nights, so Border Patrol is in Portland as part of our operations there, they were doing a targeted immigration enforcement against a known member of TDA as well as an associate of TDA who's been involved in a prostitution ring there, as well as a prior shooting in Portland earlier in the summer. As they went to make the arrest in the car, the driver, again TDA member, decided to weaponize it and drive at the officer, fired shots defensively. They
later found the individual found the car. Those individuals, the drivers currently an FBI custody. The passenger is in ICE custody now pending removal. There will be an investigation. But a really really highlight thing that to show is the first response out of all of these local politicians was up, let's let's this is a terror. You know, there's been
another shooting. It was against definitely innocent people, and we were out there pretty early saying no, these are TDA members, like this was part of a targeted We knew who we were arresting, we knew that these were bad people, and you immediately saw it stopped to operations. Do you really want the police to stop getting gang mem out
of your community? And just this immediate demonization, And I think one of the most striking ones of it was, you know, CNN was trying to report that this was just a married couple and they were just targeted because of their they weren't they weren't white, and it was just like, no, we had information on this and we targeted them. And then, as you said, then it was well, how do we know that their TDA and the local
police confirmed it. And as you said, he I don't think he really wanted to based off of his statements. I'm going to leave that up to him. But we trust our officers, we trust the intelligence that we're working off of, and we support our officers. Again, you're in a dangerous situation, two gang members, and all of a suddenly, three thousand pound vehicles turned against you. We train our officers,
they responded the way they were supposed to. They worked for them the safety of the officers, and then we went and arrested these folks and we've got them and like I said, both of them, they are in custody now. And that's the biggest update. I'm sure there will be an investigation of sure, there's all that, so I don't want to get ahead of it. But the thing that was so striking was that everybody wanted to be so
fast to condemn it. And as all the information came out, I think it just became a little too hard to defend.
It did indeed, like all of these things. So here's my question to you. I don't know how deeply you can go into it, but when you see that kind of rhetoric, you hear that kind of rhetoric, but more than just you know what we're hearing from Tim Walls in Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frye, you know, the sort of overheated rhetoric, get the f out and those sorts of things. But actually we have heard from from public officials, from government officials talking about ways to obstruct ICE or at
least endorsing that. Would these people be arrested for obstruction? Harry? I think about a judge in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee County, Hannah Dugan. She was just convicted by a federal jury for obstructing justice in helping a again a criminal, a legal immigrant, escape ICE custody. Now, why is what she did any different from some of these other public officials who are helping leftist organizations and others try to stop ICE from doing its duty.
Well, that was a crazy story that came out of Wisconsin. I remember when that broke. It was just an insane story. But I think here's the thing, is that you should not be encouraging violence against officers, nor should you again be encouraging people to obstruct law enforcement from doing their job.
You know, I don't want to get into a weird legal ease of what happened, but let's just use some common sense that you probably shouldn't be encouraging violence against others, and you shouldn't be encouraging people to impede law enforcement operations.
I think it's wrong. We call it out everywhere we see it, and it's unfortunately as impacted people that our officers are facing this, you know, to kind of circle this back to Minneapolis, I mean, if you look on the news, you go on any social media, you can see what these folks are doing twenty four you know, more than half a dozen arrests for assault against officers since they've been there for a week. That's just an
insane statistic. And obviously I wish they would listen to me and say, please, don't encourage people to go commit crimes. That's not a good thing to do. And I would hope people would not be taking that to heart. It would not be acting on that kind of bad advice.
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You mentioned it before in the Portland case. It certainly came out in the Minneapolis case, and it's happened time and time again, the rush to judgment, the rush to judge federal law enforcement officials in their efforts to enforce US immigration law. I can't help but think about maybe the most dominant case of that, which was really assisted, aided, and debedded by an accomp list media, the Maryland man case. And I think about the Minneapolis woman with three young children.
That's how Renee Good is being painted. As you noted the Portland couple just to driving about minding their own business. I mean, those are the sorts of narratives that have popped up. They've been so patently false. But in your estimation, how much culpability does the corporate media have in all of this?
Well, you know, I think that we really, we really would just ask folks to, you know, get the fact straight. Don't rush your judgment on these things. Obviously, there are a lot of rapidly evolving situations. We try to do our best to get the information out there, but we shouldn't be making heroes out of people who are trying to stop officers from arresting criminals. Again, don't want to get into any kind ofly trouble necessarily and say it, but look at the reporting and look at what they're
reporting against. You know, the offst of public affairs at DHS, we get hundreds of inquiries a day and the amount of ones that are about, hey, we want to cover the officers that are doing really good work, or let's look at the people you guys are going after, or even more, which I think is a very important story, is the victims of illegal immigration. We don't get a lot of those, especially from the mainstream media, and I think people need to look at the cost of that.
You know, I believe Lincoln Riley's twenty fourth birthday was supposed to be yesterday. We've seen these horrible, horrible stories. I mean, they're heart wrenching, and behind every one of those is the system did not stop this person from either coming into the country or did not get them when they were released from a jail because a lot of them have had priors before, or these are people
that shouldn't have been there. And if we just enforce the laws of our country, you know, somebody else would be alive right now. And that's one of the things that drive our mission, right we want to get bad people out of our country. Like we should be highlighting the good work that our officers are doing. But you know, I don't see a lot of those articles. Federalists does a great job covering a lot of that stuff, which you know, we obviously appreciated and are shetting light on.
As you said, you guys highlighted a lot that people were getting out of it, and I think that that's a really important story that is never told, is the cost of legal immigration and what happens with these sanctuary jurisdictions because there's so many of these stories that are just never highlighted. And it's American families that are being impacted by this, it's innocent lives that are being taken.
Yeah again, you know, as a journalist, you have every right to ask questions about policy and about how the laws are being enforced, all of those sorts of things. But damn it, tell the other side of the story, at least make a pretense of doing that. They don't. And what you said before, you know about the victims, the Lake and Riley's of the world doesn't fit their narrative,
so they don't exist. And that's the sad thing. I mean, I've covered extensively, and I've gotten to know a gentleman from Illinois, and I think perhaps you may know him as well. Joe Abraham, whose daughter, twenty year old Katie Abraham, was killed by in a legal immigrant who was drunk and driving it eighty miles per hour, smashed into their vehicle, killed two young women with their futures in front of them. You know, JB. Pritzker won't give that story the time
of day. He won't reach out to those people. You know, these this is where the impact line is. We don't have much time left.
I want to know, if you don't mind, I would really like to highlight here's a great a great story that did not get a lot of coverage related to the victims. Is one of the things that Secretary Nome has done is we've actually reactivated an office called Voice Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. And I think this is an important one. And as you mentioned, we know Joe Abraham's story. He's somebody who is going through this office.
Is one of the things that this administration did was make sure that there's an office that is standing by ready to assist the families who have been the victims of illegal immigration. They have a website would encourage anybody look it up. And the stories that they get out of that, I mean, I know ICE has highlighted them. We've highlighted some of these folks that already about to talk about it in public. But that's one of those
basic stories. I don't remember a big headline story from a lot of mainstream media of US reopening up that office, but they are doing good work and I can only imagine, you know what the folks working there and how hard it is for family to come forward. But that's one of the ways we are actually trying to highlight stuff and really encourage people to look into the work that they're doing. Obviously, if impacted, they've got a hotline, courage,
courage victims to reach out for help. But that's one of those stories that's definitely got lost. But that was shuttered under the Biden administration, and it's one of the first things we did early on was make sure that was open again.
Why was it shuttered under the Biden administration?
By the way, that's a great question that I can't understand why you want to want to shut down a hotline to help people. I probably didn't fit into their narrative as they were helping oversee an invasion of our country for four years.
Thank you right about that. Again, I know we don't have too much time, You've got a gazillion things to do, But just a couple of final questions, are you at all concerned what you've said over the last week or so in Minneapolis and other parts of the country. Now we're going to see the Summer of Love twenty twenty, the massive Black Lives Matter protests once again happening in these cities over quite frankly, a false narrative.
I would really hope not. I always hope that our officers are going to be safe as are doing their job. I know one thing that can say is that you know, we are not backing down. We are going to continue to enforce the laws of this nation. I really hope, you know, folks come to their senses and we see the rhetoric stop, and we see the violence against our
officers stop. That's what I'm hoping for, so that the men and women that are on the ground are safe and they're not facing again eight percent increase in death threats, thirteen percent increase in assault in a thirty two hundred increase in vehicle assaults.
You mentioned before as well. Secretary Nome has said we are sending more ICE agents, more federal law enforcement officials to Minneapolis. What's the number there and what do you think about the lawsuit filed this week to try to remove ICE's presence from Minneapolis and Minnesota.
They're not going to get into a specific number on that, but this is one of the largest DHS operations we've ever done. We don't want to put it we don't want to put a target on the backs of our officers more than they already have it this lawsuit. You know, I think it's it's we are we are not going to stop enforcing federal law. I think it's really interesting to just see these see I believe it's the mayor in the ag trying to push this. We're going to
continue to enforce the law. It's just that simple. There's a supremacy clause for a region reason. And it's very interesting that they've now decided to try to discover the Tenth Amendment. Yes, it is.
That's an interesting point. That's for another show altogether. But state's rights to these folks just about a year plus ago didn't mean much. Now all of a sudden, the Tenth Amendment is critical to them. Very interesting. Well, you do hard work, you do necessary work, and we're always glad to talk to You've got a standing invitation to join us anytime, sir.
Fantastic, Thank you so much. I appreciate it, you bet.
Thanks to my guest today, Harry Phones, Department of Homeland Security Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, on the ever increasing peril of being an ice agent in sanctuary cities. You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom. I'm anxious for the frame
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