Fox & Friends justifies mass ICE raids in Mississippi: It sends a message that “it is not OK to come”
Pete Hegseth: Images of children sobbing for their parents are “appealing to emotions. We have a rule of law.”
Published
Citation From the August 9 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
GERALDO RIVERA (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE): I am absolutely appalled by this sweep in Mississippi over the last couple of days, in which almost 700 undocumented workers in the poultry processing plants in Mississippi have been arrested. Some of them here for decades, almost all of them with citizen children. What in the world is the point of rounding up 700 hard-working, otherwise law-abiding people, working in the crappiest job in America, that American citizens just refuse to fill? I just -- I don't understand it.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Well you know why.
RIVERA: I do know why.
KILMEADE: But here's the thing, 300 have been released back. And not only is it the crackdown, it's the message to everybody else. The word is now, come in and you get to stay. It's -- we're at 900,000 backlog, it's going to take four years before you even get your time in court. So the message, it's not OK to hire, it's not OK to come, it's not OK to stay if you're going to circumvent the system. So they'd been planning this raid for a while, they got 600, 300 plus have been back, but they've been filed. They're going to have their status examined.
RIVERA: I think it's a perfect way for ICE to have the worst reputation of any law enforcement agency in the country.
KILMEADE: Why?
PETE HEGSETH (GUEST CO-HOST): But Geraldo --
RIVERA: If you take these highly trained agents, and you have them apprehending a guy who's worked there for 15 years, and the American TV viewer -- and we saw it last night -- see his 11-year-old daughter sobbing, where's my daddy, I don't have any daddy to take care of me. I think that --
HEGSETH: But that -- all you have to do to get -- Geraldo, you're appealing to emotions, which we have a rule of law in this country. And ultimately, to get past your talking points, all you have to do is look at the details. Three of these companies were knowingly and fraudulently using false Social Security numbers and identities of employees, which is breaking the law. You can't come here illegally and work here illegally by misrepresenting who you are, no matter how long you've stayed here. So by enforcing those laws, you encourage businesses to operate legally. But when you don't enforce the rule of law, then it's open season. What are the laws? Why does it matter? Why do we even have them to begin with?