Nicolle Wallace on ICE: ‘If you think what ICE is doing, couldn’t affect you…you are wrong’

Whatever else happens from this day forward

in the effort to cover and hold accountable Donald Trump

and his cabinet.

The individuals who testified before today gave us something we've never had before.

First-hand witness accounts

of well, let's quote them.

of an attempt to quote, be executed by my own government.

The testimony came from Marimar Martinez.

or by Alia Raman, who gave us our first testimony of how

detainees inside the Whipple building are described.

Quote, they're bringing in bodies.

Quote, there's a body in there already. We need another room for this body.

Martin Daniel Rascon, the last individual testifying there,

describing the scene.

Weapons and armored trucks outside his house.

Night vision goggles, guns pointed at them.

Quote, pure terror.

for his family.

All of them US citizens.

So, if you think this story is a story about something happening far away.

If you think that what ICE is doing doesn't affect you or couldn't affect you.

If you think you can drive into an intersection as Alia did

and was quote, cut out of her car with a knife thrown onto her face.

You're wrong.

Stories about all of us.

All this is being done in our name to other American citizens.

Joining our coverage, former Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI,

National and National Security and Intelligence Analyst Michael Feinberg's here.

He's also a fellow at Lawfare.

Also joining us, former DHS Chief of Staff during Donald Trump's first term as President,

Miles Taylor's here.

And immigration correspondent for NPR, Jasmine Garr is here.

She is just back from reporting on the ground in Minneapolis.

We're also joined by Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas.

Congressman, I want to start with you.

You're here to talk about efforts to return

Liam Ramos to his family, a five-year-old boy used as bait to try to entrap his mother

who was inside his house.

a good news story in a sea of so much horror.

Yeah, it was wonderful to be able to take him and his father back to Minnesota

from rural Texas, from Dilly, Texas.

But his story is just one of hundreds of children who are in detention right now,

including a two-month-old baby who's been there for several days.

And kids of all ages who are suffering incredible trauma.

And the testimony that we just heard talks about the brutality,

the physical brutality that we're seeing from ICE on the streets.

But there is also a physical and psychological brutality

going on inside detention centers.

leaving scars for kids that will last them a lifetime.

The judge was scathing in his rebuke of the seizing of Liam Ramos and his father.

He was also able to tell a story about the traumatic damage that ICE is doing to children.

What is your sense of why that damage is seen so clearly by this judge in this case,

hasn't been able to stop the practice of detaining children and keeping them in these conditions?

I think that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and others in the administration are determined to carry out

this very brutal, often unconstitutional deportation,

mass deportation machine.

And for the American people, they're seeing what's going on in the streets.

And I think that with the murder of Alex Pretty, for example,

it shocked the conscience.

And the story of Liam Conejo Ramos also shocked the conscience

and captured the attention of the country and the world

about what's going on.

But yeah, I mean, we're there are more people out there who are suffering.

And those of us that believe this is wrong, whether you're a Republican or Democrat,

need to continue to fight this system right now.

I ask this question the day that Renee Nicole Good was killed.

If this is how American citizens are being treated in broad daylight with dozens, sometimes hundreds of people watching,

what is your best answer to how asylum seekers and immigrants and migrants are being treated

without cameras and without accountability and without scrutiny inside detention centers?

I think that there are people that are being brutalized,

that are being physically hurt and also psychologically damaged.

It is a very vicious system that is set up right now

and that they're carrying out.

And I do think that we're going to look back upon this time as a shameful period

in American history where we let our guard down in terms of protecting people's constitutional and human rights.

Congressman Joaquin Castro, thank you for the work that you did with your colleagues

to bring Liam Ramos back as as we said at the top.

sort of a rare, a rare good news, good guys winning story.

Thank you for your role in that and for joining us to talk about it.

Thank you.

Miles Taylor, I I was going to ask you what this agency was

that showed up at Martin Daniel Rascon's house.

HSI, Homeland Security Investigators.

Why would all those units have been at his home?

It's a great question, Nicole.

It's a question we're going to be asking.

DHS has now taken this investigative agency within ICE,

Homeland Security Investigations, HSI,

and turned it into another arm of the administration's oppression.

In fact, I will add a data point in here, Nicole.

A lot of people didn't notice this, but in the reporting

about the arrest of reporter Don Lemon,

it wasn't just the FBI that was there.

It was HSI.

What on earth is an investigative agency that's supposed to be focused on foreign threats

doing, helping to arrest American journalists?

And you and I talked about this a little bit the other day.

I think you can say in all seriousness that DHS is now spending more time,

more effort and more money undermining US Homeland Security than protecting it.

And the trust, of course, because of all of these incidents has evaporated in the agency.

And for good reason.

They have destroyed the reputation, whatever was left of it, not just of the agency ICE,

but of the whole of the department.

And as you and I talked about before, I think for that reason it can no longer exist.

Not in this form, not without accountability, not without measures to prevent them

from acting like a lawless secret police.

So, I I I think, Nicole, the only silver lining here is that is now a realization

that's not no longer a fringe realization in American politics.

That's a mainstream position.

It's a mainstream position now that because of this, we've got to deconstruct that department

and reconstruct it.

It's gotten that bad and I can't listen to testimony like you played at the top of the show

and think there's any other path.

Yeah, I mean, an American citizen testifying to this, Michael Feinberg, quote,

my own government tried to execute me.

She was shot five times.

She described her injuries.

She described her disfigurement.

She described how even with all of that trauma, physical and mental, she knows that Alex Pretty and Renee Nicole Good

would would trade places to be back with their loved ones.

We have, we have a a body count.

in terms of the number of American citizens who have paid with their lives for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Yeah, the thing that struck me the most about the testimony which we just heard

is that those victims of ICE were able to understand and articulate

a greater understanding of the ideals and promises upon which this country was founded

than I've ever heard come out of Christie Gnome's mouth

or out of Stephen Miller's mouth.

I am as resolutely pro law enforcement as they come.

I carried a badge and a gun for most of my adult career.

But I want to echo what Miles said as he was speaking.

We have gotten to the point where the rot at DHS is so pervasive

and so deep into the structure of the organization

that I think we need to have a very serious, very sober conversation as a nation

about how in the long term we dismantle this department.

Because what they are doing is nothing that I or any of my former colleagues would recognize as law enforcement.

What they are doing is simply meeting out state-sanctioned barbarism and cruelty.