CNN Panel Battles Over ICE Pullback in Minnesota: ‘Look Alex Pretti’s Mother in the Face!’

A raucous CNN panel reached a boiling point on Thursday when longtime Trump supporter Joe Borelli claimed that the recent federal immigration surge operation in Minneapolis was a success.

Borelli joined CNN NewsNight alongside host Abby Phillip to discuss the Minneapolis surge in the wake of Thursday’s announcement that the operation had come to a close. After CNN analyst Bakari Sellers claimed that the pullback in Minneapolis was a retreat, Borelli argued that the move actually proved the operation had been successful.

“Look, I mean, you know, you phrased this as a retreat from Minnesota. I would say it’s not a retreat. I would say it’s a successful mission that is now over,” said Borelli. “There were 4,000 arrests of individuals. Many of them had ICE detainers. And I think they, more importantly, on the big picture, the policy, they reestablished that despite sanctuary city jurisdictions who refuse to comply with ICE detainers, they’ve reasserted themselves as saying, ‘hey, whether you arrest someone and release them or not, we’re still going to enforce federal immigration law in Minnesota and Chicago and where else?'”

Later in the discussion, author Tiffany Cross and Borelli sparred over the issue, with Cross pushing Borelli on the two U.S. citizens who were killed by immigration officials during the course of the operation.

Read their exchange below:

 CROSS: They shot a mother in the face and a nurse in the back and you’re calling that a success.

BORELLI: I’m not calling that a success. I’m calling the operation in general a success.

CROSS: So at best, at best this is a tap dancing performance for Donald Trump, or at worst it is a gross lack of humanity for fellow human beings. It is disgusting, honestly, that – I wonder sometimes when I see something happens and I wonder, how could we possibly have a debate about this?

[…]

It is a disrespect to the people out there watching, and I don’t know anything about you. I’ve never been curious enough to Google, but I have to imagine you are a human being with family. You don’t want somebody living like that. You don’t want somebody being arrested or murdered by the state. And for all the people who have endured that for decades, it is a disgrace and disrespect to call that a success.

BORELLI: The immigration laws have not changed in the last ten years, in the last twenty years.

CROSS: How is it a success that they shot a nurse –

BORELLI: Why

CROSS: – in the back and a mother in the face.

BORELLI: No one is saying – you’re putting words in my mouth.

CROSS: That’s disrespect –

BORELLI: Stop putting words in my mouth.

CROSS: You said this was a success. Tom Homan said, “I’m not going to say they did anything wrong.”

BORELLI: I said the operation was a success. They reestablished the fact that –

CROSS: You all feed from the same trough.

BORELLI: – Immigration and Customs Enforcement can enforce immigration law. They reestablished that fact. That happened.

CROSS: Look Renee Good’s family in the face –

BORELLI: It is unfortunate is a tragedy. There’s an investigation going on with those shootings.

CROSS: Look Alex Pretti’s mother in the face –

BORELLI: There ought to be –

CROSS: – and tell her that her son getting murdered by the state was a success.

BORELLI: No one is saying the shooting’s a success.

CROSS: Look yourself in the mirror tonight and tell yourself it was a success.

BORELLI: When the hell did I say someone getting shot in a police operation was a success?

CROSS: At the beginning of the show.

BORELLI: No, no. You made that up.

CROSS: Let’s run back the tape.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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