ICE director criticizes CBS for cutting Noem’s immigration comments

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Todd Lyons said Tuesday it was a “shame” that CBS News allegedly edited Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments on “Face the Nation.”

Noem claimed on X that CBS cut half her answer about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and “the threat he poses to American public safety” to “whitewash the truth” about him. CBS responded that the edit was made for time and that the full response was available in the show’s online transcript and on its YouTube page.

Lyons backed Noem during an appearance on “America’s Newsroom,” rejecting CBS’ explanation.

“It is very disheartening the fact they want to go ahead and stop Secretary Noem from telling the truth about this egregious offender…No one’s going to read a transcript. No one’s going to go to YouTube. You had millions of viewers at that time on the Sunday morning show watching that and have key parts of that conversation cut out. It’s not right,” Lyons said.

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Lyons praised Noem and the Trump administration for transparency in ICE operations and the people being arrested and deported, including Garcia. 

“In the last administration, we were always on defense when it came to media,” Lyons said. “Now we want to make sure the public actually knows what the men and women of ICE are doing out there every day. In the interview, she talked about this offender and why he needs to be deported back to his country. I think it’s a shame they would go ahead and edit that because this person isn’t a ‘Maryland man.’ He is a criminal alien from El Salvador that’s living in Maryland that we need to take off the streets.”

In the clip that aired, Noem was asked why the Trump administration was working to deport Garcia instead of forcing him to face charges in the United States.

“Prosecution decisions are always made by the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi’s department, so we will let them do that, although this individual does have criminal charges pending. He has charges pending against him civilly as well. And the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure that he doesn’t walk free in the United States of America,” Noem said.

The on-air portion cut off the rest of her answer and went directly to host Ed O’Keefe’s next question about whether the government would still seek to deport him to Uganda. 

Noem posted her full response on X.

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“This individual was a known human smuggler, an MS-13 gang member, and an individual who is a wife beater, and someone who is so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off. He was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children. So, he needs to never be in the United States of America, and our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can,” Noem said in the longer clip.

CBS insisted the process met the network’s standards. 

“Secretary Noem’s ‘Face The Nation’ interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards. The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted earlier this morning on CBSNews.com,” a CBS News spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Monday.

Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.