Backlash against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is growing. On Wednesday’s “Deadline: White House,” MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace explained how the aggressive tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have led to a rise in support for Congress to abolish or at least to reel in the agency.
“Faced with scene after scene after scene of increasingly brutal conduct by federal agents — often targeted at U.S. citizens these days — and an avalanche of disinformation from Donald Trump and his Cabinet about what the Trump administration is actually doing on our streets and in our cities, the American people are, at least for now, choosing to believe their own eyes and their own ears,” she said on Wednesday.
Wallace referred to a new Economist/YouGov poll that showed, in her words, “growing numbers of Americans reacting to the Trump administration with a rising tide of revulsion and conviction to resist efforts to militarize American cities.”
According to the poll, half of Americans believe the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent was not justified. Almost the same share, 47%, said the agency is making the country less safe.
When it came to the abolition of the agency altogether, 46% told pollsters they supported the idea. Wallace described that as “a dramatic, seismic political swing,” which she argued was “the consequence” of Americans watching what has unfolded in Minneapolis since Good’s killing last week.
Wallace played clips of recent interactions between residents and federal immigration agents in the city, in which officers used increasingly violent tactics. In one video, ICE agents can be seen pulling a woman out of her car, even after she told them she was disabled and on her way to a doctor appointment. Another video showed an officer kneeling on the neck of a protester. The “Deadline: White House” host noted that this was “a particularly shocking and disturbing and jarring image from any standpoint, much less Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered five years ago.” According to Wallace, the backlash is now so widespread that it has transcended partisan divides. “This isn’t really right, left,” she explained; it has now entered the “territory of government overreach and what do you want your government to do in the name of its citizens.” You can watch Wallace’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. Recommended
