CNN Anchor Struggles to Understand Why Immigration Laws Are Enforced [WATCH]

CNN anchor Boris Sanchez pressed former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf on Tuesday during a segment of “CNN News Central,” questioning the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws against individuals without criminal records.

The exchange focused on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and the broader scope of the administration’s immigration enforcement priorities.

During the interview, Sanchez referred to internal ICE data indicating that, in states like Massachusetts, approximately 78% of individuals arrested in community raids had no criminal record beyond immigration violations.

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“I wanted to ask you about one aspect of this analysis of ICE data. In some states, like Massachusetts, 78% of those arrested in community raids had no criminal record,” Sanchez said.

“So I wonder how sweeping up these non-criminals makes communities safer.”

Wolf responded by explaining the administration’s enforcement approach, emphasizing both the targeting of criminals and the necessity of applying immigration law more broadly.

“We saw that during four years of the Biden administration where they said … we’re not going to arrest and therefore deport certain classes of illegal aliens here in the United States,” Wolf said.

“And unfortunately, what that does is it just encourages more and more of those types of individuals to come to the country knowing that they’ll never be deported.”

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Sanchez challenged the idea of enforcing the law as a deterrent, especially when the individuals in question have overstayed visas or are undocumented but working in the United States.

“If this is about deterrence, as you alluded to, and you’re detaining students and folks that don’t have priors that are here in the United States just living the American dream and working and may have overstayed a visa … then what exactly are you deterring?” Sanchez asked.

“Because those folks aren’t a public safety threat, right?”

Wolf replied that enforcement applies to all individuals who violate U.S. immigration law, regardless of their criminal background.

“I think what you’re deterring here is the fact that individuals knowingly break U.S. law, knowingly stay in the United States when they have no legal right to be here,” Wolf said.

“I think that’s the type of behavior that you want to deter. You want folks to come into — not only to have folks come into the United States legally — but to stay here legally.”

Sanchez referenced President Donald Trump’s remarks acknowledging that certain industries, particularly agriculture, rely on illegal immigrant labor.

He asked why, in light of those remarks, these individuals were still being targeted for removal.

“So if the president says that we need them — our food supply depends on them — why are they then being targeted and not given a pathway to obtain citizenship?” Sanchez asked.

Wolf responded that he was not certain whether such workers were being deliberately targeted, and reiterated ICE’s responsibility.

“ICE is doing its job, which is to say they are removing individuals that don’t have a legal right to be here,” he said.

“They’re focusing on criminals, but they’re not excluding any group of individuals.”

Sanchez continued to press the point, claiming that ICE had conducted enforcement actions on farms and asking why the agency would detain individuals who had not committed crimes beyond immigration violations.

“ICE is raiding farms! Are they not?” he asked.

Wolf reiterated that the agency’s authority extends to all individuals without legal status.

Sanchez concluded by asking, “Why go after just a blanket population of folks when you don’t actually know if they’ve done something wrong?”

Wolf responded that immigration law does not exempt certain populations from enforcement and warned that selective enforcement could lead to more illegal entries.

“I think anytime that you exclude a population … what you have seen over in history is that more and more of these individuals will come to the United States, will overstay their visa, because they know that there is no repercussion,” Wolf said.

The enforcement strategy discussed by Wolf was echoed in remarks made by Border Czar Tom Homan during a July appearance on “The Stephen A. Smith Show.”

Homan explained that limiting deportations to only those with additional criminal convictions would undermine the administration’s ability to deter illegal immigration effectively.